The French Revolution A History by Thomas Carlyle

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Raging multitudes surround the Hotel-de-Ville, crying: Arms! Orders! TheSix-and-twenty Town-Councillors, with their long gowns, have ducked under(into the raging chaos);--shall never emerge more. Besenval is painfullywriggling himself out, to the Champ-de-Mars; he must sit there 'in thecruelest uncertainty:' courier after courier may dash off for Versailles;but will bring back no answer, can hardly bring himself back. For theroads are all blocked with batteries and pickets, with floods of carriagesarrested for examination: such was Broglie's one sole order; the Oeil-de-Boeuf, hearing in the distance such mad din, which sounded almost likeinvasion, will before all things keep its own head whole. A new Ministry,with, as it were, but one foot in the stirrup, cannot take leaps. MadParis is abandoned altogether to itself.

What a Paris, when the darkness fell! A European metropolitan City hurledsuddenly forth from its old combinations and arrangements; to crashtumultuously together, seeking new. Use and wont will now no longer directany man; each man, with what of originality he has, must begin thinking; orfollowing those that think. Seven hundred thousand individuals, on thesudden, find all their old paths, old ways of acting and deciding, vanishfrom under their feet. And so there go they, with clangour and terror,they know not as yet whether running, swimming or flying,--headlong intothe New Era. With clangour and terror: from above, Broglie the war-godimpends, preternatural, with his redhot cannon-balls; and from below, apreternatural Brigand-world menaces with dirk and firebrand: madness rulesthe hour.

Happily, in place of the submerged Twenty-six, the Electoral Club isgathering; has declared itself a 'Provisional Municipality.' On the morrowit will get Provost Flesselles, with an Echevin or two, to give help inmany things. For the present it decrees one most essential thing: thatforthwith a 'Parisian Militia' shall be enrolled. Depart, ye heads ofDistricts, to labour in this great work; while we here, in PermanentCommittee, sit alert. Let fencible men, each party in its own range ofstreets, keep watch and ward, all night. Let Paris court a little fever-sleep; confused by such fever-dreams, of 'violent motions at the PalaisRoyal;'--or from time to time start awake, and look out, palpitating, inits nightcap, at the clash of discordant mutually-unintelligible Patrols;on the gleam of distant Barriers, going up all-too ruddy towards the vaultof Night. (Deux Amis, i. 267-306.)

Chapter 1.5.V.

Give us Arms.

On Monday the huge City has awoke, not to its week-day industry: to what adifferent one! The working man has become a fighting man; has one wantonly: that of arms. The industry of all crafts has paused;--except it bethe smith's, fiercely hammering pikes; and, in a faint degree, thekitchener's, cooking off-hand victuals; for bouche va toujours. Women tooare sewing cockades;--not now of green, which being D'Artois colour, theHotel-de-Ville has had to interfere in it; but of red and blue, our oldParis colours: these, once based on a ground of constitutional white, arethe famed TRICOLOR,--which (if Prophecy err not) 'will go round the world.'

All shops, unless it be the Bakers' and Vintners', are shut: Paris is inthe streets;--rushing, foaming like some Venice wine-glass into which youhad dropped poison. The tocsin, by order, is pealing madly from allsteeples. Arms, ye Elector Municipals; thou Flesselles with thy Echevins,give us arms! Flesselles gives what he can: fallacious, perhaps insidiouspromises of arms from Charleville; order to seek arms here, order to seekthem there. The new Municipals give what they can; some three hundred andsixty indifferent firelocks, the equipment of the City-Watch: 'a man inwooden shoes, and without coat, directly clutches one of them, and mountsguard.' Also as hinted, an order to all Smiths to make pikes with theirwhole soul.

Heads of Districts are in fervent consultation; subordinate Patriotismroams distracted, ravenous for arms. Hitherto at the Hotel-de-Ville wasonly such modicum of indifferent firelocks as we have seen. At the so-called Arsenal, there lies nothing but rust, rubbish and saltpetre,--overlooked too by the guns of the Bastille. His Majesty's Repository, whatthey call Garde-Meuble, is forced and ransacked: tapestries enough, andgauderies; but of serviceable fighting-gear small stock! Two silver-mounted cannons there are; an ancient gift from his Majesty of Siam toLouis Fourteenth: gilt sword of the Good Henri; antique Chivalry arms andarmour. These, and such as these, a necessitous Patriotism snatchesgreedily, for want of better. The Siamese cannons go trundling, on anerrand they were not meant for. Among the indifferent firelocks are seentourney-lances; the princely helm and hauberk glittering amid ill-hattedheads,--as in a time when all times and their possessions are suddenly sentjumbling!

At the Maison de Saint-Lazare, Lazar-House once, now a Correction-Housewith Priests, there was no trace of arms; but, on the other hand, corn,plainly to a culpable extent. Out with it, to market; in this scarcity ofgrains!--Heavens, will 'fifty-two carts,' in long row, hardly carry it tothe Halle aux Bleds? Well, truly, ye reverend Fathers, was your pantryfilled; fat are your larders; over-generous your wine-bins, ye plottingexasperators of the Poor; traitorous forestallers of bread!

Vain is protesting, entreaty on bare knees: the House of Saint-Lazarus hasthat in it which comes not out by protesting. Behold, how, from everywindow, it vomits: mere torrents of furniture, of bellowing andhurlyburly;--the cellars also leaking wine. Till, as was natural, smokerose,--kindled, some say, by the desperate Saint-Lazaristes themselves,desperate of other riddance; and the Establishment vanished from this worldin flame. Remark nevertheless that 'a thief' (set on or not byAristocrats), being detected there, is 'instantly hanged.'

Look also at the Chatelet Prison. The Debtors' Prison of La Force isbroken from without; and they that sat in bondage to Aristocrats go free: hearing of which the Felons at the Chatelet do likewise 'dig up theirpavements,' and stand on the offensive; with the best prospects,--had notPatriotism, passing that way, 'fired a volley' into the Felon world; andcrushed it down again under hatches. Patriotism consorts not with thievingand felony: surely also Punishment, this day, hitches (if she still hitch)after Crime, with frightful shoes-of-swiftness! 'Some score or two' ofwretched persons, found prostrate with drink in the cellars of that Saint-Lazare, are indignantly haled to prison; the Jailor has no room; whereupon,other place of security not suggesting itself, it is written, 'on lespendit, they hanged them.' (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 96.) Brief is theword; not without significance, be it true or untrue!

In such circumstances, the Aristocrat, the unpatriotic rich man is packing-up for departure. But he shall not get departed. A wooden-shod force hasseized all Barriers, burnt or not: all that enters, all that seeks toissue, is stopped there, and dragged to the Hotel-de-Ville: coaches,tumbrils, plate, furniture, 'many meal-sacks,' in time even 'flocks andherds' encumber the Place de Greve. (Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille, p.20.)

And so it roars, and rages, and brays; drums beating, steeples pealing;criers rushing with hand-bells: "Oyez, oyez. All men to their Districtsto be enrolled!" The Districts have met in gardens, open squares; aregetting marshalled into volunteer troops. No redhot ball has yet fallenfrom Besenval's Camp; on the contrary, Deserters with their arms arecontinually dropping in: nay now, joy of joys, at two in the afternoon,the Gardes Francaises, being ordered to Saint-Denis, and flatly declining,have come over in a body! It is a fact worth many. Three thousand sixhundred of the best fighting men, with complete accoutrement; withcannoneers even, and cannon! Their officers are left standing alone; couldnot so much as succeed in 'spiking the guns.' The very Swiss, it may nowbe hoped, Chateau-Vieux and the others, will have doubts about fighting.

Our Parisian Militia,--which some think it were better to name NationalGuard,--is prospering as heart could wish. It promised to be forty-eightthousand; but will in few hours double and quadruple that number: invincible, if we had only arms!

But see, the promised Charleville Boxes, marked Artillerie! Here, then,are arms enough?--Conceive the blank face of Patriotism, when it found themfilled with rags, foul linen, candle-ends, and bits of wood! Provost ofthe Merchants, how is this? Neither at the Chartreux Convent, whither wewere sent with signed order, is there or ever was there any weapon of war.Nay here, in this Seine Boat, safe under tarpaulings (had not the nose ofPatriotism been of the finest), are 'five thousand-weight of gunpowder;'not coming in, but surreptitiously going out! What meanest thou,Flesselles? 'Tis a ticklish game, that of 'amusing' us. Cat plays withcaptive mouse: but mouse with enraged cat, with enraged National Tiger?

Meanwhile, the faster, O ye black-aproned Smiths, smite; with strong armand willing heart. This man and that, all stroke from head to heel, shallthunder alternating, and ply the great forge-hammer, till stithy reel andring again; while ever and anon, overhead, booms the alarm-cannon,--for theCity has now got gunpowder. Pikes are fabricated; fifty thousand of them,in six-and-thirty hours: judge whether the Black-aproned have been idle. Dig trenches, unpave the streets, ye others, assiduous, man and maid; cramthe earth in barrel-barricades, at each of them a volunteer sentry; pilethe whinstones in window-sills and upper rooms. Have scalding pitch, atleast boiling water ready, ye weak old women, to pour it and dash it onRoyal-Allemand, with your old skinny arms: your shrill curses along withit will not be wanting!--Patrols of the newborn National Guard, bearingtorches, scour the streets, all that night; which otherwise are vacant, yetilluminated in every window by order. Strange-looking; like some naphtha-lighted City of the Dead, with here and there a flight of perturbed Ghosts.

O poor mortals, how ye make this Earth bitter for each other; this fearfuland wonderful Life fearful and horrible; and Satan has his place in allhearts! Such agonies and ragings and wailings ye have, and have had, inall times:--to be buried all, in so deep silence; and the salt sea is notswoln with your tears.

Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of Freedom reach us; when thelong-enthralled soul, from amid its chains and squalid stagnancy, arises,were it still only in blindness and bewilderment, and swears by Him thatmade it, that it will be free! Free? Understand that well, it is the deepcommandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom isthe one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles,toilings and sufferings, in this Earth. Yes, supreme is such a moment (ifthou have known it): first vision as of a flame-girt Sinai, in this ourwaste Pilgrimage,--which thenceforth wants not its pillar of cloud by day,and pillar of fire by night! Something it is even,--nay, somethingconsiderable, when the chains have grown corrosive, poisonous, to be free'from oppression by our fellow-man.' Forward, ye maddened sons of France;be it towards this destiny or towards that! Around you is but starvation,falsehood, corruption and the clam of death. Where ye are is no abiding.

Imagination may, imperfectly, figure how Commandant Besenval, in the Champ-de-Mars, has worn out these sorrowful hours Insurrection all round; his menmelting away! From Versailles, to the most pressing messages, comes noanswer; or once only some vague word of answer which is worse than none. ACouncil of Officers can decide merely that there is no decision: Colonelsinform him, 'weeping,' that they do not think their men will fight. Crueluncertainty is here: war-god Broglie sits yonder, inaccessible in hisOlympus; does not descend terror-clad, does not produce his whiff ofgrapeshot; sends no orders.

Truly, in the Chateau of Versailles all seems mystery: in the Town ofVersailles, were we there, all is rumour, alarm and indignation. An augustNational Assembly sits, to appearance, menaced with death; endeavouring todefy death. It has resolved 'that Necker carries with him the regrets ofthe Nation.' It has sent solemn Deputation over to the Chateau, withentreaty to have these troops withdrawn. In vain: his Majesty, with asingular composure, invites us to be busy rather with our own duty, makingthe Constitution! Foreign Pandours, and suchlike, go pricking andprancing, with a swashbuckler air; with an eye too probably to the Salledes Menus,--were it not for the 'grim-looking countenances' that crowd allavenues there. (See Lameth; Ferrieres, &c.) Be firm, ye NationalSenators; the cynosure of a firm, grim-looking people!

The august National Senators determine that there shall, at least, bePermanent Session till this thing end. Wherein, however, consider thatworthy Lafranc de Pompignan, our new President, whom we have named Bailly'ssuccessor, is an old man, wearied with many things. He is the Brother ofthat Pompignan who meditated lamentably on the Book of Lamentations:

Poor Bishop Pompignan withdraws; having got Lafayette for helper orsubstitute: this latter, as nocturnal Vice-President, with a thin house indisconsolate humour, sits sleepless, with lights unsnuffed;--waiting whatthe hours will bring.

So at Versailles. But at Paris, agitated Besenval, before retiring for thenight, has stept over to old M. de Sombreuil, of the Hotel des Invalideshard by. M. de Sombreuil has, what is a great secret, some eight-and-twenty thousand stand of muskets deposited in his cellars there; but notrust in the temper of his Invalides. This day, for example, he senttwenty of the fellows down to unscrew those muskets; lest Sedition mightsnatch at them; but scarcely, in six hours, had the twenty unscrewed twentygun-locks, or dogsheads (chiens) of locks,--each Invalide his dogshead! Ifordered to fire, they would, he imagines, turn their cannon againsthimself.

Unfortunate old military gentlemen, it is your hour, not of glory! OldMarquis de Launay too, of the Bastille, has pulled up his drawbridges longsince, 'and retired into his interior;' with sentries walking on hisbattlements, under the midnight sky, aloft over the glare of illuminatedParis;--whom a National Patrol, passing that way, takes the liberty offiring at; 'seven shots towards twelve at night,' which do not take effect. (Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 312.) This was the 13th day of July, 1789; aworse day, many said, than the last 13th was, when only hail fell out ofHeaven, not madness rose out of Tophet, ruining worse than crops!

In these same days, as Chronology will teach us, hot old Marquis Mirabeaulies stricken down, at Argenteuil,--not within sound of these alarm-guns;for he properly is not there, and only the body of him now lies, deaf andcold forever. It was on Saturday night that he, drawing his last life-breaths, gave up the ghost there;--leaving a world, which would never go tohis mind, now broken out, seemingly, into deliration and the culbutegenerale. What is it to him, departing elsewhither, on his long journey? The old Chateau Mirabeau stands silent, far off, on its scarped rock, inthat 'gorge of two windy valleys;' the pale-fading spectre now of aChateau: this huge World-riot, and France, and the World itself, fadesalso, like a shadow on the great still mirror-sea; and all shall be as Godwills.

Young Mirabeau, sad of heart, for he loved this crabbed brave old Father,sad of heart, and occupied with sad cares,--is withdrawn from PublicHistory. The great crisis transacts itself without him. (Fils Adoptif,Mirabeau, vi. l. 1.)

Chapter 1.5.VI.

Storm and Victory.

But, to the living and the struggling, a new, Fourteenth morning dawns. Under all roofs of this distracted City, is the nodus of a drama, notuntragical, crowding towards solution. The bustlings and preparings, thetremors and menaces; the tears that fell from old eyes! This day, my sons,ye shall quit you like men. By the memory of your fathers' wrongs, by thehope of your children's rights! Tyranny impends in red wrath: help foryou is none if not in your own right hands. This day ye must do or die.

From earliest light, a sleepless Permanent Committee has heard the old cry,now waxing almost frantic, mutinous: Arms! Arms! Provost Flesselles, orwhat traitors there are among you, may think of those Charleville Boxes. Ahundred-and-fifty thousand of us; and but the third man furnished with somuch as a pike! Arms are the one thing needful: with arms we are anunconquerable man-defying National Guard; without arms, a rabble to bewhiffed with grapeshot.

Happily the word has arisen, for no secret can be kept,--that there liemuskets at the Hotel des Invalides. Thither will we: King's Procureur M.Ethys de Corny, and whatsoever of authority a Permanent Committee can lend,shall go with us. Besenval's Camp is there; perhaps he will not fire onus; if he kill us we shall but die.

Alas, poor Besenval, with his troops melting away in that manner, has notthe smallest humour to fire! At five o'clock this morning, as he laydreaming, oblivious in the Ecole Militaire, a 'figure' stood suddenly athis bedside: 'with face rather handsome; eyes inflamed, speech rapid andcurt, air audacious:' such a figure drew Priam's curtains! The messageand monition of the figure was, that resistance would be hopeless; that ifblood flowed, wo to him who shed it. Thus spoke the figure; and vanished. 'Withal there was a kind of eloquence that struck one.' Besenval admitsthat he should have arrested him, but did not. (Besenval, iii. 414.) Whothis figure, with inflamed eyes, with speech rapid and curt, might be? Besenval knows but mentions not. Camille Desmoulins? Pythagorean MarquisValadi, inflamed with 'violent motions all night at the Palais Royal?' Fame names him, 'Young M. Meillar'; (Tableaux de la Revolution, Prise de laBastille (a folio Collection of Pictures and Portraits, with letter-press,not always uninstructive,--part of it said to be by Chamfort).) Then shutsher lips about him for ever.

In any case, behold about nine in the morning, our National Volunteersrolling in long wide flood, south-westward to the Hotel des Invalides; insearch of the one thing needful. King's procureur M. Ethys de Corny andofficials are there; the Cure of Saint-Etienne du Mont marches unpacific,at the head of his militant Parish; the Clerks of the Bazoche in red coatswe see marching, now Volunteers of the Bazoche; the Volunteers of thePalais Royal:--National Volunteers, numerable by tens of thousands; of oneheart and mind. The King's muskets are the Nation's; think, old M. deSombreuil, how, in this extremity, thou wilt refuse them! Old M. deSombreuil would fain hold parley, send Couriers; but it skills not: thewalls are scaled, no Invalide firing a shot; the gates must be flung open. Patriotism rushes in, tumultuous, from grundsel up to ridge-tile, throughall rooms and passages; rummaging distractedly for arms. What cellar, orwhat cranny can escape it? The arms are found; all safe there; lyingpacked in straw,--apparently with a view to being burnt! More ravenousthan famishing lions over dead prey, the multitude, with clangour andvociferation, pounces on them; struggling, dashing, clutching:--to thejamming-up, to the pressure, fracture and probable extinction, of theweaker Patriot. (Deux Amis, i. 302.) And so, with such protracted crashof deafening, most discordant Orchestra-music, the Scene is changed: andeight-and-twenty thousand sufficient firelocks are on the shoulders of somany National Guards, lifted thereby out of darkness into fiery light.

Let Besenval look at the glitter of these muskets, as they flash by! Gardes Francaises, it is said, have cannon levelled on him; ready to open,if need were, from the other side of the River. (Besenval, iii. 416.) Motionless sits he; 'astonished,' one may flatter oneself, 'at the proudbearing (fiere contenance) of the Parisians.'--And now, to the Bastille, yeintrepid Parisians! There grapeshot still threatens; thither all men'sthoughts and steps are now tending.

Old de Launay, as we hinted, withdrew 'into his interior' soon aftermidnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since, hampered, as all militarygentlemen now are, in the saddest conflict of uncertainties. The Hotel-de-Ville 'invites' him to admit National Soldiers, which is a soft name forsurrendering. On the other hand, His Majesty's orders were precise. Hisgarrison is but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced by thirty-two youngSwiss; his walls indeed are nine feet thick, he has cannon and powder; but,alas, only one day's provision of victuals. The city too is French, thepoor garrison mostly French. Rigorous old de Launay, think what thou wiltdo!

All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere: To the Bastille!Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here, passionate for arms;whom de Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through portholes. Towards noon, Elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains admittance; finds deLaunay indisposed for surrender; nay disposed for blowing up the placerather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving-stones, old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in everyembrasure a cannon,--only drawn back a little! But outwards behold, OThuriot, how the multitude flows on, welling through every street; tocsinfuriously pealing, all drums beating the generale: the Suburb Saint-Antoine rolling hitherward wholly, as one man! Such vision (spectral yetreal) thou, O Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in thismoment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud-gibberingSpectral Realities, which, thou yet beholdest not, but shalt! "Que voulezvous?" said de Launay, turning pale at the sight, with an air of reproach,almost of menace. "Monsieur," said Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime,"What mean you? Consider if I could not precipitate both of us from thisheight,"--say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch! Whereupon de Launay fell silent. Thuriot shews himself from some pinnacle,to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremescent: then descends;departs with protest; with warning addressed also to the Invalides,--onwhom, however, it produces but a mixed indistinct impression. The oldheads are none of the clearest; besides, it is said, de Launay has beenprofuse of beverages (prodigua des buissons). They think, they will notfire,--if not fired on, if they can help it; but must, on the whole, beruled considerably by circumstances.

Wo to thee, de Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some onefirm decision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches will not serve; hardgrape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is unquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing ever louder,into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry,--which latter,on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The Outer Drawbridge hasbeen lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third, andnoisiest of all) penetrates that way into the Outer Court: soft speechesproducing no clearance of these, de Launay gives fire; pulls up hisDrawbridge. A slight sputter;--which has kindled the too combustiblechaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos! Bursts forth insurrection, at sightof its own blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire), intoendless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, execration;--andoverhead, from the Fortress, let one great gun, with its grape-shot, gobooming, to shew what we could do. The Bastille is besieged!

On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies! Roar with allyour throats, of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of Liberty; stirspasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body or spirit;for it is the hour! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais,old-soldier of the Regiment Dauphine; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain,though the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, didthy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man; down with it to Orcus: let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and Tyranny be swallowed upfor ever! Mounted, some say on the roof of the guard-room, some 'onbayonets stuck into joints of the wall,' Louis Tournay smites, brave AubinBonnemere (also an old soldier) seconding him: the chain yields, breaks;the huge Drawbridge slams down, thundering (avec fracas). Glorious: andyet, alas, it is still but the outworks. The Eight grim Towers, with theirInvalides' musketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths, still soaraloft intact;--Ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced; the inner Drawbridgewith its back towards us: the Bastille is still to take!

To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of the mostimportant in history) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could onebut, after infinite reading, get to understand so much as the plan of thebuilding! But there is open Esplanade, at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de l'Orme, archedGateway (where Louis Tournay now fights); then new drawbridges, dormant-bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers: a labyrinthic Mass,high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years to four hundred andtwenty;--beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we said, by mere Chaos comeagain! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all capacities; men of allplans, every man his own engineer: seldom since the war of Pygmies andCranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for asuit of regimentals; no one would heed him in coloured clothes: half-payHulin is haranguing Gardes Francaises in the Place de Greve. FranticPatriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot (or seemingly so),to the Hotel-de-Ville:--Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt! Flesselles is'pale to the very lips' for the roar of the multitude grows deep. Pariswholly has got to the acme of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panicmadness. At every street-barricade, there whirls simmering, a minorwhirlpool,--strengthening the barricade, since God knows what is coming;and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand Fire-Mahlstromwhich is lashing round the Bastille.

And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine-merchant has become animpromptu cannoneer. See Georget, of the Marine Service, fresh from Brest,ply the King of Siam's cannon. Singular (if we were not used to the like): Georget lay, last night, taking his ease at his inn; the King of Siam'scannon also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years. Yet now, atthe right instant, they have got together, and discourse eloquent music.For, hearing what was toward, Georget sprang from the Brest Diligence, andran. Gardes Francaises also will be here, with real artillery: were notthe walls so thick!--Upwards from the Esplanade, horizontally from allneighbouring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of musketry,--without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing comparatively at their easefrom behind stone; hardly through portholes, shew the tip of a nose. Wefall, shot; and make no impression!

Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms areburnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted 'Peruke-maker with two fierytorches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the Arsenal;'--had not a womanrun screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Philosophy,instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach),overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young beautifullady, seized escaping in these Outer Courts, and thought falsely to be deLaunay's daughter, shall be burnt in de Launay's sight; she lies swooned ona paillasse: but again a Patriot, it is brave Aubin Bonnemere the oldsoldier, dashes in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt; three cartloads ofit, hauled thither, go up in white smoke: almost to the choking ofPatriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back onecart; and Reole the 'gigantic haberdasher' another. Smoke as of Tophet;confusion as of Babel; noise as of the Crack of Doom!

Blood flows, the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried intohouses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yieldtill the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls areso thick! Deputations, three in number, arrive from the Hotel-de-Ville;Abbe Fouchet (who was of one) can say, with what almost superhuman courageof benevolence. (Fauchet's Narrative (Deux Amis, i. 324.).) These wavetheir Town-flag in the arched Gateway; and stand, rolling their drum; butto no purpose. In such Crack of Doom, de Launay cannot hear them, dare notbelieve them: they return, with justified rage, the whew of lead stillsinging in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here, squirting withtheir fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon, to wet the touchholes; theyunfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge propose catapults. Santerre, thesonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saint-Antoine, advises rather that the placebe fired, by a 'mixture of phosphorous and oil-of-turpentine spouted upthrough forcing pumps:' O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the mixture ready? Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge abates not; evenwomen are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), andone Turk. (Deux Amis (i. 319); Dusaulx, &c.) Gardes Francaises have come: real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.

How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner Court there, atits ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special, for it or the world, werepassing! It tolled One when the firing began; and is now pointing towardsFive, and still the firing slakes not.--Far down, in their vaults, theseven Prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes; their Turnkeys answervaguely.

Wo to thee, de Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides! Broglie isdistant, and his ears heavy: Besenval hears, but can send no help. Onepoor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoitring, cautiously along the Quais,as far as the Pont Neuf. "We are come to join you," said the Captain; forthe crowd seems shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sensein him; and croaks: "Alight then, and give up your arms!" the Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the Barriers, and dismissed onparole. Who the squat individual was? Men answer, it is M. Marat, authorof the excellent pacific Avis au Peuple! Great truly, O thou remarkableDogleech, is this thy day of emergence and new birth: and yet this sameday come four years--!--But let the curtains of the future hang.

What shall de Launay do? One thing only de Launay could have done: whathe said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from the first, with lightedtaper, within arm's length of the Powder-Magazine; motionless, like oldRoman Senator, or bronze Lamp-holder; coldly apprising Thuriot, and allmen, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was:--Harmless hesat there, while unharmed; but the King's Fortress, meanwhile, could,might, would, or should, in nowise, be surrendered, save to the King'sMessenger: one old man's life worthless, so it be lost with honour; butthink, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a whole Bastille springsskyward!--In such statuesque, taper-holding attitude, one fancies de Launaymight have left Thuriot, the red Clerks of the Bazoche, Cure of Saint-Stephen and all the tagrag-and-bobtail of the world, to work their will.

And yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered how each man'sheart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts of all men; hast thounoted how omnipotent is the very sound of many men? How their shriek ofindignation palsies the strong soul; their howl of contumely withers withunfelt pangs? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone of thenoblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the voice of thePopulace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser: Bread! Bread! Great is the combined voice of men; the utterance of their instincts, whichare truer than their thoughts: it is the greatest a man encounters, amongthe sounds and shadows, which make up this World of Time. He who canresist that, has his footing some where beyond Time. De Launay could notdo it. Distracted, he hovers between the two; hopes in the middle ofdespair; surrenders not his Fortress; declares that he will blow it up,seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it. Unhappy old de Launay,it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee! Jail, Jailoring andJailor, all three, such as they may have been, must finish.

For four hours now has the World-Bedlam roared: call it the World-Chimaera, blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under theirbattlements, or rise only with reversed muskets: they have made a whiteflag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one canhear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look weary of firing;disheartened in the fire-deluge: a porthole at the drawbridge is opened,as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On hisplank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-Ditch; plank resting onparapet, balanced by weight of Patriots,--he hovers perilous: such a Dovetowards such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher: one man already fell; andlies smashed, far down there, against the masonry! Usher Maillard fallsnot: deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm. The Swiss holds apaper through his porthole; the shifty Usher snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender: Pardon, immunity to all! Are they accepted?--"Foid'officier, On the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin,--or half-pay Elie, for men do not agree on it, "they are!" Sinks the drawbridge,--Usher Maillard bolting it when down; rushes-in the living deluge: theBastille is fallen! Victoire! La Bastille est prise! (Histoire de laRevolution, par Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 267-306; Besenval, iii. 410-434; Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille, 291-301. Bailly, Memoires (Collectionde Berville et Barriere), i. 322 et seqq.)

Chapter 1.5.VII.

Not a Revolt.

Why dwell on what follows? Hulin's foi d'officer should have been kept,but could not. The Swiss stand drawn up; disguised in white canvas smocks;the Invalides without disguise; their arms all piled against the wall. Thefirst rush of victors, in ecstacy that the death-peril is passed, 'leapsjoyfully on their necks;' but new victors rush, and ever new, also inecstacy not wholly of joy. As we said, it was a living deluge, plungingheadlong; had not the Gardes Francaises, in their cool military way,'wheeled round with arms levelled,' it would have plunged suicidally, bythe hundred or the thousand, into the Bastille-ditch.

And so it goes plunging through court and corridor; billowinguncontrollable, firing from windows--on itself: in hot frenzy of triumph,of grief and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides will fare ill;one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is driven back, with a death-thrust. Let all prisoners be marched to the Townhall, to be judged!--Alas,already one poor Invalide has his right hand slashed off him; his maimedbody dragged to the Place de Greve, and hanged there. This same righthand, it is said, turned back de Launay from the Powder-Magazine, and savedParis.

De Launay, 'discovered in gray frock with poppy-coloured riband,' is forkilling himself with the sword of his cane. He shall to the Hotel-de-Ville; Hulin Maillard and others escorting him; Elie marching foremost'with the capitulation-paper on his sword's point.' Through roarings andcursings; through hustlings, clutchings, and at last through strokes! Yourescort is hustled aside, felled down; Hulin sinks exhausted on a heap ofstones. Miserable de Launay! He shall never enter the Hotel de Ville: only his 'bloody hair-queue, held up in a bloody hand;' that shall enter,for a sign. The bleeding trunk lies on the steps there; the head is offthrough the streets; ghastly, aloft on a pike.

Rigorous de Launay has died; crying out, "O friends, kill me fast!" Merciful de Losme must die; though Gratitude embraces him, in this fearfulhour, and will die for him; it avails not. Brothers, your wrath is cruel!Your Place de Greve is become a Throat of the Tiger; full of mere fiercebellowings, and thirst of blood. One other officer is massacred; one otherInvalide is hanged on the Lamp-iron: with difficulty, with generousperseverance, the Gardes Francaises will save the rest. Provost Flessellesstricken long since with the paleness of death, must descend from his seat,'to be judged at the Palais Royal:'--alas, to be shot dead, by an unknownhand, at the turning of the first street!--

O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams fall slant on reapersamid peaceful woody fields; on old women spinning in cottages; on ships farout in the silent main; on Balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, wherehigh-rouged Dames of the Palace are even now dancing with double-jackettedHussar-Officers;--and also on this roaring Hell porch of a Hotel-de-Ville! Babel Tower, with the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with theconflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of distractedsteel bristles, endless, in front of an Electoral Committee; points itself,in horrid radii, against this and the other accused breast. It was theTitans warring with Olympus; and they scarcely crediting it, haveconquered: prodigy of prodigies; delirious,--as it could not but be. Denunciation, vengeance; blaze of triumph on a dark ground of terror: alloutward, all inward things fallen into one general wreck of madness!

Electoral Committee? Had it a thousand throats of brass, it would notsuffice. Abbe Lefevre, in the Vaults down below, is black as Vulcan,distributing that 'five thousand weight of Powder;' with what perils, theseeight-and-forty hours! Last night, a Patriot, in liquor, insisted onsitting to smoke on the edge of one of the Powder-barrels; there smoked he,independent of the world,--till the Abbe 'purchased his pipe for threefrancs,' and pitched it far.

Elie, in the grand Hall, Electoral Committee looking on, sits 'with drawnsword bent in three places;' with battered helm, for he was of the Queen'sRegiment, Cavalry; with torn regimentals, face singed and soiled;comparable, some think, to 'an antique warrior;'--judging the people;forming a list of Bastille Heroes. O Friends, stain not with blood thegreenest laurels ever gained in this world: such is the burden of Elie'ssong; could it but be listened to. Courage, Elie! Courage, ye MunicipalElectors! A declining sun; the need of victuals, and of telling news, willbring assuagement, dispersion: all earthly things must end.

Along the streets of Paris circulate Seven Bastille Prisoners, borneshoulder-high: seven Heads on pikes; the Keys of the Bastille; and muchelse. See also the Garde Francaises, in their steadfast military way,marching home to their barracks, with the Invalides and Swiss kindlyenclosed in hollow square. It is one year and two months since these samemen stood unparticipating, with Brennus d'Agoust at the Palais de Justice,when Fate overtook d'Espremenil; and now they have participated; and willparticipate. Not Gardes Francaises henceforth, but Centre Grenadiers ofthe National Guard: men of iron discipline and humour,--not without a kindof thought in them!

Likewise ashlar stones of the Bastille continue thundering through thedusk; its paper-archives shall fly white. Old secrets come to view; andlong-buried Despair finds voice. Read this portion of an old Letter:(Dated, a la Bastille, 7 Octobre, 1752; signed Queret-Demery. BastilleDevoilee, in Linguet, Memoires sur la Bastille (Paris, 1821), p. 199.) 'Iffor my consolation Monseigneur would grant me for the sake of God and theMost Blessed Trinity, that I could have news of my dear wife; were it onlyher name on card to shew that she is alive! It were the greatestconsolation I could receive; and I should for ever bless the greatness ofMonseigneur.' Poor Prisoner, who namest thyself Queret Demery, and hast noother history,--she is dead, that dear wife of thine, and thou art dead! 'Tis fifty years since thy breaking heart put this question; to be heardnow first, and long heard, in the hearts of men.

But so does the July twilight thicken; so must Paris, as sick children, andall distracted creatures do, brawl itself finally into a kind of sleep. Municipal Electors, astonished to find their heads still uppermost, arehome: only Moreau de Saint-Mery of tropical birth and heart, of coolestjudgment; he, with two others, shall sit permanent at the Townhall. Parissleeps; gleams upward the illuminated City: patrols go clashing, withoutcommon watchword; there go rumours; alarms of war, to the extent of'fifteen thousand men marching through the Suburb Saint-Antoine,'--whonever got it marched through. Of the day's distraction judge by this ofthe night: Moreau de Saint-Mery, 'before rising from his seat, gaveupwards of three thousand orders.' (Dusaulx.) What a head; comparable toFriar Bacon's Brass Head! Within it lies all Paris. Prompt must theanswer be, right or wrong; in Paris is no other Authority extant. Seriously, a most cool clear head;--for which also thou O brave Saint-Mery,in many capacities, from august Senator to Merchant's-Clerk, Book-dealer,Vice-King; in many places, from Virginia to Sardinia, shalt, ever as abrave man, find employment. (Biographie Universelle, para Moreau Saint-Mery (by Fournier-Pescay).)

Besenval has decamped, under cloud of dusk, 'amid a great affluence ofpeople,' who did not harm him; he marches, with faint-growing tread, downthe left bank of the Seine, all night,--towards infinite space. Resummonedshall Besenval himself be; for trial, for difficult acquittal. His King's-troops, his Royal Allemand, are gone hence for ever.

The Versailles Ball and lemonade is done; the Orangery is silent except fornightbirds. Over in the Salle des Menus, Vice-president Lafayette, withunsnuffed lights, 'with some hundred of members, stretched on tables roundhim,' sits erect; outwatching the Bear. This day, a second solemnDeputation went to his Majesty; a second, and then a third: with noeffect. What will the end of these things be?

In the Court, all is mystery, not without whisperings of terror; though yedream of lemonade and epaulettes, ye foolish women! His Majesty, kept inhappy ignorance, perhaps dreams of double-barrels and the Woods of Meudon.Late at night, the Duke de Liancourt, having official right of entrance,gains access to the Royal Apartments; unfolds, with earnest clearness, inhis constitutional way, the Job's-news. "Mais," said poor Louis, "c'estune revolte, Why, that is a revolt!"--"Sire," answered Liancourt, "It isnot a revolt, it is a revolution."

Chapter 1.5.VIII.

Conquering your King.

On the morrow a fourth Deputation to the Chateau is on foot: of a moresolemn, not to say awful character, for, besides 'orgies in the Orangery,'it seems, 'the grain convoys are all stopped;' nor has Mirabeau's thunderbeen silent. Such Deputation is on the point of setting out--when lo, hisMajesty himself attended only by his two Brothers, step in; quite in thepaternal manner; announces that the troops, and all causes of offence, aregone, and henceforth there shall be nothing but trust, reconcilement, good-will; whereof he 'permits and even requests,' a National Assembly to assureParis in his name! Acclamation, as of men suddenly delivered from death,gives answer. The whole Assembly spontaneously rises to escort his Majestyback; 'interlacing their arms to keep off the excessive pressure from him;'for all Versailles is crowding and shouting. The Chateau Musicians, with afelicitous promptitude, strike up the Sein de sa Famille (Bosom of one'sFamily): the Queen appears at the balcony with her little boy and girl,'kissing them several times;' infinite Vivats spread far and wide;--andsuddenly there has come, as it were, a new Heaven-on-Earth.

Eighty-eight august Senators, Bailly, Lafayette, and our repentantArchbishop among them, take coach for Paris, with the great intelligence;benedictions without end on their heads. From the Place Louis Quinze,where they alight, all the way to the Hotel-de-Ville, it is one sea ofTricolor cockades, of clear National muskets; one tempest of huzzaings,hand-clappings, aided by 'occasional rollings' of drum-music. Harangues ofdue fervour are delivered; especially by Lally Tollendal, pious son of theill-fated murdered Lally; on whose head, in consequence, a civic crown (ofoak or parsley) is forced,--which he forcibly transfers to Bailly's.

But surely, for one thing, the National Guard must have a General! Moreaude Saint-Mery, he of the 'three thousand orders,' casts one of hissignificant glances on the Bust of Lafayette, which has stood there eversince the American War of Liberty. Whereupon, by acclamation, Lafayette isnominated. Again, in room of the slain traitor or quasi-traitorFlesselles, President Bailly shall be--Provost of the Merchants? No: Mayor of Paris! So be it. Maire de Paris! Mayor Bailly, GeneralLafayette; vive Bailly, vive Lafayette--the universal out-of-doorsmultitude rends the welkin in confirmation.--And now, finally, let us toNotre-Dame for a Te Deum.

Towards Notre-Dame Cathedral, in glad procession, these Regenerators of theCountry walk, through a jubilant people; in fraternal manner; Abbe Lefevre,still black with his gunpowder services, walking arm in arm with the white-stoled Archbishop. Poor Bailly comes upon the Foundling Children, sent tokneel to him; and 'weeps.' Te Deum, our Archbishop officiating, is notonly sung, but shot--with blank cartridges. Our joy is boundless as our wothreatened to be. Paris, by her own pike and musket, and the valour of herown heart, has conquered the very wargods,--to the satisfaction now ofMajesty itself. A courier is, this night, getting under way for Necker: the People's Minister, invited back by King, by National Assembly, andNation, shall traverse France amid shoutings, and the sound of trumpet andtimbrel.

Seeing which course of things, Messeigneurs of the Court Triumvirate,Messieurs of the dead-born Broglie-Ministry, and others such, consider thattheir part also is clear: to mount and ride. Off, ye too-loyal Broglies,Polignacs, and Princes of the Blood; off while it is yet time! Did not thePalais-Royal in its late nocturnal 'violent motions,' set a specific price(place of payment not mentioned) on each of your heads?--With precautions,with the aid of pieces of cannon and regiments that can be depended on,Messeigneurs, between the 16th night and the 17th morning, get to theirseveral roads. Not without risk! Prince Conde has (or seems to have) 'mengalloping at full speed;' with a view, it is thought, to fling him into theriver Oise, at Pont-Sainte-Mayence. (Weber, ii. 126.) The Polignacstravel disguised; friends, not servants, on their coach-box. Broglie hashis own difficulties at Versailles, runs his own risks at Metz and Verdun;does nevertheless get safe to Luxemburg, and there rests.

This is what they call the First Emigration; determined on, as appears, infull Court-conclave; his Majesty assisting; prompt he, for his share of it,to follow any counsel whatsoever. 'Three Sons of France, and four Princesof the blood of Saint Louis,' says Weber, 'could not more effectuallyhumble the Burghers of Paris 'than by appearing to withdraw in fear oftheir life.' Alas, the Burghers of Paris bear it with unexpected Stoicism! The Man d'Artois indeed is gone; but has he carried, for example, the LandD'Artois with him? Not even Bagatelle the Country-house (which shall beuseful as a Tavern); hardly the four-valet Breeches, leaving the Breeches-maker!--As for old Foulon, one learns that he is dead; at least a'sumptuous funeral' is going on; the undertakers honouring him, if no otherwill. Intendant Berthier, his son-in-law, is still living; lurking: hejoined Besenval, on that Eumenides' Sunday; appearing to treat it withlevity; and is now fled no man knows whither.

The Emigration is not gone many miles, Prince Conde hardly across the Oise,when his Majesty, according to arrangement, for the Emigration also thoughtit might do good,--undertakes a rather daring enterprise: that of visitingParis in person. With a Hundred Members of Assembly; with small or nomilitary escort, which indeed he dismissed at the Bridge of Sevres, poorLouis sets out; leaving a desolate Palace; a Queen weeping, the Present,the Past, and the Future all so unfriendly for her.

At the Barrier of Passy, Mayor Bailly, in grand gala, presents him with thekeys; harangues him, in Academic style; mentions that it is a great day;that in Henri Quatre's case, the King had to make conquest of his People,but in this happier case, the People makes conquest of its King (a conquisson Roi). The King, so happily conquered, drives forward, slowly, througha steel people, all silent, or shouting only Vive la Nation; is haranguedat the Townhall, by Moreau of the three-thousand orders, by King'sProcureur M. Ethys de Corny, by Lally Tollendal, and others; knows not whatto think of it, or say of it; learns that he is 'Restorer of FrenchLiberty,'--as a Statue of him, to be raised on the site of the Bastille,shall testify to all men. Finally, he is shewn at the Balcony, with aTricolor cockade in his hat; is greeted now, with vehement acclamation,from Square and Street, from all windows and roofs:--and so drives homeagain amid glad mingled and, as it were, intermarried shouts, of Vive leRoi and Vive la Nation; wearied but safe.

It was Sunday when the red-hot balls hung over us, in mid air: it is nowbut Friday, and 'the Revolution is sanctioned.' An August NationalAssembly shall make the Constitution; and neither foreign Pandour, domesticTriumvirate, with levelled Cannon, Guy-Faux powder-plots (for that too wasspoken of); nor any tyrannic Power on the Earth, or under the Earth, shallsay to it, What dost thou?--So jubilates the people; sure now of aConstitution. Cracked Marquis Saint-Huruge is heard under the windows ofthe Chateau; murmuring sheer speculative-treason. (Campan, ii. 46-64.)

Chapter 1.5.IX.

The Lanterne.

The Fall of the Bastille may be said to have shaken all France to thedeepest foundations of its existence. The rumour of these wonders fliesevery where: with the natural speed of Rumour; with an effect thought tobe preternatural, produced by plots. Did d'Orleans or Laclos, nay didMirabeau (not overburdened with money at this time) send riding Couriersout from Paris; to gallop 'on all radii,' or highways, towards all pointsof France? It is a miracle, which no penetrating man will call inquestion. (Toulongeon, (i. 95); Weber, &c. &c.)

Already in most Towns, Electoral Committees were met; to regret Necker, inharangue and resolution. In many a Town, as Rennes, Caen, Lyons, anebullient people was already regretting him in brickbats and musketry. Butnow, at every Town's-end in France, there do arrive, in these days ofterror,--'men,' as men will arrive; nay, 'men on horseback,' since Rumouroftenest travels riding. These men declare, with alarmed countenance, TheBRIGANDS to be coming, to be just at hand; and do then--ride on, abouttheir further business, be what it might! Whereupon the whole populationof such Town, defensively flies to arms. Petition is soon thereafterforwarded to National Assembly; in such peril and terror of peril, leave toorganise yourself cannot be withheld: the armed population becomeseverywhere an enrolled National Guard. Thus rides Rumour, careering alongall radii, from Paris outwards, to such purpose: in few days, some say innot many hours, all France to the utmost borders bristles with bayonets. Singular, but undeniable,--miraculous or not!--But thus may any chemicalliquid; though cooled to the freezing-point, or far lower, still continueliquid; and then, on the slightest stroke or shake, it at once rusheswholly into ice. Thus has France, for long months and even years, beenchemically dealt with; brought below zero; and now, shaken by the Fall of aBastille, it instantaneously congeals: into one crystallised mass, ofsharp-cutting steel! Guai a chi la tocca; 'Ware who touches it!

In Paris, an Electoral Committee, with a new Mayor and General, is urgentwith belligerent workmen to resume their handicrafts. Strong Dames of theMarket (Dames de la Halle) deliver congratulatory harangues; present'bouquets to the Shrine of Sainte Genevieve.' Unenrolled men deposit theirarms,--not so readily as could be wished; and receive 'nine francs.' WithTe Deums, Royal Visits, and sanctioned Revolution, there is halcyonweather; weather even of preternatural brightness; the hurricane beingoverblown.

Nevertheless, as is natural, the waves still run high, hollow rocksretaining their murmur. We are but at the 22nd of the month, hardly abovea week since the Bastille fell, when it suddenly appears that old Foulon isalive; nay, that he is here, in early morning, in the streets of Paris; theextortioner, the plotter, who would make the people eat grass, and was aliar from the beginning!--It is even so. The deceptive 'sumptuous funeral'(of some domestic that died); the hiding-place at Vitry towardsFontainbleau, have not availed that wretched old man. Some living domesticor dependant, for none loves Foulon, has betrayed him to the Village. Merciless boors of Vitry unearth him; pounce on him, like hell-hounds: Westward, old Infamy; to Paris, to be judged at the Hotel-de-Ville! Hisold head, which seventy-four years have bleached, is bare; they have tiedan emblematic bundle of grass on his back; a garland of nettles andthistles is round his neck: in this manner; led with ropes; goaded on withcurses and menaces, must he, with his old limbs, sprawl forward; thepitiablest, most unpitied of all old men.

Sooty Saint-Antoine, and every street, mustering its crowds as he passes,--the Place de Greve, the Hall of the Hotel-de-Ville will scarcely hold hisescort and him. Foulon must not only be judged righteously; but judgedthere where he stands, without any delay. Appoint seven judges, yeMunicipals, or seventy-and-seven; name them yourselves, or we will namethem: but judge him! (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 146-9.) Electoralrhetoric, eloquence of Mayor Bailly, is wasted explaining the beauty of theLaw's delay. Delay, and still delay! Behold, O Mayor of the People, themorning has worn itself into noon; and he is still unjudged!--Lafayette,pressingly sent for, arrives; gives voice: This Foulon, a known man, isguilty almost beyond doubt; but may he not have accomplices? Ought not thetruth to be cunningly pumped out of him,--in the Abbaye Prison? It is anew light! Sansculottism claps hands;--at which hand-clapping, Foulon (inhis fainness, as his Destiny would have it) also claps. "See! theyunderstand one another!" cries dark Sansculottism, blazing into fury ofsuspicion.--"Friends," said 'a person in good clothes,' stepping forward,"what is the use of judging this man? Has he not been judged these thirtyyears?" With wild yells, Sansculottism clutches him, in its hundred hands: he is whirled across the Place de Greve, to the 'Lanterne,' Lamp-iron whichthere is at the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie; pleading bitterly forlife,--to the deaf winds. Only with the third rope (for two ropes broke,and the quavering voice still pleaded), can he be so much as got hanged! His Body is dragged through the streets; his Head goes aloft on a pike, themouth filled with grass: amid sounds as of Tophet, from a grass-eatingpeople. (Deux Amis de la Liberte, ii. 60-6.)

Surely if Revenge is a 'kind of Justice,' it is a 'wild' kind! O madSansculottism hast thou risen, in thy mad darkness, in thy soot and rags;unexpectedly, like an Enceladus, living-buried, from under his Trinacria? They that would make grass be eaten do now eat grass, in this manner? After long dumb-groaning generations, has the turn suddenly become thine?--To such abysmal overturns, and frightful instantaneous inversions of thecentre-of-gravity, are human Solecisms all liable, if they but knew it; themore liable, the falser (and topheavier) they are!--

To add to the horror of Mayor Bailly and his Municipals, word comes thatBerthier has also been arrested; that he is on his way hither fromCompiegne. Berthier, Intendant (say, Tax-levier) of Paris; sycophant andtyrant; forestaller of Corn; contriver of Camps against the people;--accused of many things: is he not Foulon's son-in-law; and, in that onepoint, guilty of all? In these hours too, when Sansculottism has its bloodup! The shuddering Municipals send one of their number to escort him, withmounted National Guards.

At the fall of day, the wretched Berthier, still wearing a face of courage,arrives at the Barrier; in an open carriage; with the Municipal beside him;five hundred horsemen with drawn sabres; unarmed footmen enough, notwithout noise! Placards go brandished round him; bearing legibly hisindictment, as Sansculottism, with unlegal brevity, 'in huge letters,'draws it up. ('Il a vole le Roi et la France (He robbed the King andFrance).' 'He devoured the substance of the People.' 'He was the slave ofthe rich, and the tyrant of the poor.' 'He drank the blood of the widowand orphan.' 'He betrayed his country.' See Deux Amis, ii. 67-73.) Parisis come forth to meet him: with hand-clappings, with windows flung up;with dances, triumph-songs, as of the Furies! Lastly the Head of Foulon: this also meets him on a pike. Well might his 'look become glazed,' andsense fail him, at such sight!--Nevertheless, be the man's conscience whatit may, his nerves are of iron. At the Hotel-de-Ville, he will answernothing. He says, he obeyed superior order; they have his papers; they mayjudge and determine: as for himself, not having closed an eye these twonights, he demands, before all things, to have sleep. Leaden sleep, thoumiserable Berthier! Guards rise with him, in motion towards the Abbaye. At the very door of the Hotel-de-Ville, they are clutched; flung asunder,as by a vortex of mad arms; Berthier whirls towards the Lanterne. Hesnatches a musket; fells and strikes, defending himself like a mad lion; isborne down, trampled, hanged, mangled: his Head too, and even his Heart,flies over the City on a pike.

Horrible, in Lands that had known equal justice! Not so unnatural in Landsthat had never known it. Le sang qui coule est-il donc si pure? asksBarnave; intimating that the Gallows, though by irregular methods, has itsown.--Thou thyself, O Reader, when thou turnest that corner of the Rue dela Vannerie, and discernest still that same grim Bracket of old Iron, wiltnot want for reflections. 'Over a grocer's shop,' or otherwise; with 'abust of Louis XIV. in the niche under it,' or now no longer in the niche,--it still sticks there: still holding out an ineffectual light, of fish-oil; and has seen worlds wrecked, and says nothing.

But to the eye of enlightened Patriotism, what a thunder-cloud was this;suddenly shaping itself in the radiance of the halcyon weather! Cloud ofErebus blackness: betokening latent electricity without limit. MayorBailly, General Lafayette throw up their commissions, in an indignantmanner;--need to be flattered back again. The cloud disappears, asthunder-clouds do. The halcyon weather returns, though of a grayercomplexion; of a character more and more evidently not supernatural.

Thus, in any case, with what rubs soever, shall the Bastille be abolishedfrom our Earth; and with it, Feudalism, Despotism; and, one hopes,Scoundrelism generally, and all hard usage of man by his brother man. Alas, the Scoundrelism and hard usage are not so easy of abolition! But asfor the Bastille, it sinks day after day, and month after month; itsashlars and boulders tumbling down continually, by express order of ourMunicipals. Crowds of the curious roam through its caverns; gaze on theskeletons found walled up, on the oubliettes, iron cages, monstrous stone-blocks with padlock chains. One day we discern Mirabeau there; along withthe Genevese Dumont. (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 305.) Workersand onlookers make reverent way for him; fling verses, flowers on his path,Bastille-papers and curiosities into his carriage, with vivats.

Able Editors compile Books from the Bastille Archives; from what of themremain unburnt. The Key of that Robber-Den shall cross the Atlantic; shalllie on Washington's hall-table. The great Clock ticks now in a privatepatriotic Clockmaker's apartment; no longer measuring hours of mereheaviness. Vanished is the Bastille, what we call vanished: the body, orsandstones, of it hanging, in benign metamorphosis, for centuries to come,over the Seine waters, as Pont Louis Seize; (Dulaure: Histoire de Paris,viii. 434.) the soul of it living, perhaps still longer, in the memories ofmen.

So far, ye august Senators, with your Tennis-Court Oaths, your inertia andimpetus, your sagacity and pertinacity, have ye brought us. "And yetthink, Messieurs," as the Petitioner justly urged, "you who were oursaviours, did yourselves need saviours,"--the brave Bastillers, namely;workmen of Paris; many of them in straightened pecuniary circumstances! (Moniteur: Seance du Samedi 18 Juillet 1789 (in Histoire Parlementaire,ii. 137.) Subscriptions are opened; Lists are formed, more accurate thanElie's; harangues are delivered. A Body of Bastille Heroes, tolerablycomplete, did get together;--comparable to the Argonauts; hoping to endurelike them. But in little more than a year, the whirlpool of things threwthem asunder again, and they sank. So many highest superlatives achievedby man are followed by new higher; and dwindle into comparatives andpositives! The Siege of the Bastille, weighed with which, in theHistorical balance, most other sieges, including that of Troy Town, aregossamer, cost, as we find, in killed and mortally wounded, on the part ofthe Besiegers, some Eighty-three persons: on the part of the Besieged,after all that straw-burning, fire-pumping, and deluge of musketry, Onepoor solitary invalid, shot stone-dead (roide-mort) on the battlements;(Dusaulx: Prise de la Bastille, p. 447, &c.) The Bastille Fortress, likethe City of Jericho, was overturned by miraculous sound.

BOOK VI.

CONSOLIDATION

Chapter 1.6.I.

Make the Constitution.

Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, what these twowords, French Revolution, shall mean; for, strictly considered, they mayhave as many meanings as there are speakers of them. All things are inrevolution; in change from moment to moment, which becomes sensible fromepoch to epoch: in this Time-World of ours there is properly nothing elsebut revolution and mutation, and even nothing else conceivable. Revolution, you answer, means speedier change. Whereupon one has still toask: How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points ofthis variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never stop tillTime itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinarymutation, and again become such? It is a thing that will depend ondefinition more or less arbitrary.

For ourselves we answer that French Revolution means here the open violentRebellion, and Victory, of disimprisoned Anarchy against corrupt worn-outAuthority: how Anarchy breaks prison; bursts up from the infinite Deep,and rages uncontrollable, immeasurable, enveloping a world; in phasis afterphasis of fever-frenzy;--'till the frenzy burning itself out, and whatelements of new Order it held (since all Force holds such) developingthemselves, the Uncontrollable be got, if not reimprisoned, yet harnessed,and its mad forces made to work towards their object as sane regulatedones. For as Hierarchies and Dynasties of all kinds, Theocracies,Aristocracies, Autocracies, Strumpetocracies, have ruled over the world; soit was appointed, in the decrees of Providence, that this same VictoriousAnarchy, Jacobinism, Sansculottism, French Revolution, Horrors of FrenchRevolution, or what else mortals name it, should have its turn. The'destructive wrath' of Sansculottism: this is what we speak, havingunhappily no voice for singing.

Surely a great Phenomenon: nay it is a transcendental one, oversteppingall rules and experience; the crowning Phenomenon of our Modern Time. Forhere again, most unexpectedly, comes antique Fanaticism in new and newestvesture; miraculous, as all Fanaticism is. Call it the Fanaticism of'making away with formulas, de humer les formulas.' The world of formulas,the formed regulated world, which all habitable world is,--must needs hatesuch Fanaticism like death; and be at deadly variance with it. The worldof formulas must conquer it; or failing that, must die execrating it,anathematising it;--can nevertheless in nowise prevent its being and itshaving been. The Anathemas are there, and the miraculous Thing is there.

Whence it cometh? Whither it goeth? These are questions! When the age ofMiracles lay faded into the distance as an incredible tradition, and eventhe age of Conventionalities was now old; and Man's Existence had for longgenerations rested on mere formulas which were grown hollow by course oftime; and it seemed as if no Reality any longer existed but only Phantasmsof realities, and God's Universe were the work of the Tailor andUpholsterer mainly, and men were buckram masks that went about becking andgrimacing there,--on a sudden, the Earth yawns asunder, and amid Tartareansmoke, and glare of fierce brightness, rises SANSCULOTTISM, many-headed,fire-breathing, and asks: What think ye of me? Well may the buckram masksstart together, terror-struck; 'into expressive well-concerted groups!' Itis indeed, Friends, a most singular, most fatal thing. Let whosoever isbut buckram and a phantasm look to it: ill verily may it fare with him;here methinks he cannot much longer be. Wo also to many a one who is notwholly buckram, but partially real and human! The age of Miracles has comeback! 'Behold the World-Phoenix, in fire-consummation and fire-creation;wide are her fanning wings; loud is her death-melody, of battle-thundersand falling towns; skyward lashes the funeral flame, enveloping all things: it is the Death-Birth of a World!'

Whereby, however, as we often say, shall one unspeakable blessing seemattainable. This, namely: that Man and his Life rest no more onhollowness and a Lie, but on solidity and some kind of Truth. Welcome, thebeggarliest truth, so it be one, in exchange for the royallest sham! Truthof any kind breeds ever new and better truth; thus hard granite rock willcrumble down into soil, under the blessed skyey influences; and coveritself with verdure, with fruitage and umbrage. But as for Falsehood,which in like contrary manner, grows ever falser,--what can it, or whatshould it do but decease, being ripe; decompose itself, gently or evenviolently, and return to the Father of it,--too probably in flames of fire?

Sansculottism will burn much; but what is incombustible it will not burn. Fear not Sansculottism; recognise it for what it is, the portentous,inevitable end of much, the miraculous beginning of much. One other thingthou mayest understand of it: that it too came from God; for has it notbeen? From of old, as it is written, are His goings forth; in the greatDeep of things; fearful and wonderful now as in the beginning: in thewhirlwind also He speaks! and the wrath of men is made to praise Him.--Butto gauge and measure this immeasurable Thing, and what is called accountfor it, and reduce it to a dead logic-formula, attempt not! Much lessshalt thou shriek thyself hoarse, cursing it; for that, to all needfullengths, has been already done. As an actually existing Son of Time, look,with unspeakable manifold interest, oftenest in silence, at what the Timedid bring: therewith edify, instruct, nourish thyself, or were it but toamuse and gratify thyself, as it is given thee.

Another question which at every new turn will rise on us, requiring evernew reply is this: Where the French Revolution specially is? In theKing's Palace, in his Majesty's or her Majesty's managements, andmaltreatments, cabals, imbecilities and woes, answer some few:--whom we donot answer. In the National Assembly, answer a large mixed multitude: whoaccordingly seat themselves in the Reporter's Chair; and therefrom notingwhat Proclamations, Acts, Reports, passages of logic-fence, bursts ofparliamentary eloquence seem notable within doors, and what tumults andrumours of tumult become audible from without,--produce volume on volume;and, naming it History of the French Revolution, contentedly publish thesame. To do the like, to almost any extent, with so many Filed Newspapers,Choix des Rapports, Histoires Parlementaires as there are, amounting tomany horseloads, were easy for us. Easy but unprofitable. The NationalAssembly, named now Constituent Assembly, goes its course; making theConstitution; but the French Revolution also goes its course.

In general, may we not say that the French Revolution lies in the heart andhead of every violent-speaking, of every violent-thinking French Man? Howthe Twenty-five Millions of such, in their perplexed combination, actingand counter-acting may give birth to events; which event successively isthe cardinal one; and from what point of vision it may best be surveyed: this is a problem. Which problem the best insight, seeking light from allpossible sources, shifting its point of vision whithersoever vision orglimpse of vision can be had, may employ itself in solving; and be wellcontent to solve in some tolerably approximate way.

As to the National Assembly, in so far as it still towers eminent overFrance, after the manner of a car-borne Carroccio, though now no longer inthe van; and rings signals for retreat or for advance,--it is and continuesa reality among other realities. But in so far as it sits making theConstitution, on the other hand, it is a fatuity and chimera mainly. Alas,in the never so heroic building of Montesquieu-Mably card-castles, thoughshouted over by the world, what interest is there? Occupied in that way,an august National Assembly becomes for us little other than a Sanhedrim ofpedants, not of the gerund-grinding, yet of no fruitfuller sort; and itsloud debatings and recriminations about Rights of Man, Right of Peace andWar, Veto suspensif, Veto absolu, what are they but so many Pedant's-curses, 'May God confound you for your Theory of Irregular Verbs!'

A Constitution can be built, Constitutions enough a la Sieyes: but thefrightful difficulty is that of getting men to come and live in them! Could Sieyes have drawn thunder and lightning out of Heaven to sanction hisConstitution, it had been well: but without any thunder? Nay, strictlyconsidered, is it not still true that without some such celestial sanction,given visibly in thunder or invisibly otherwise, no Constitution can in thelong run be worth much more than the waste-paper it is written on? TheConstitution, the set of Laws, or prescribed Habits of Acting, that menwill live under, is the one which images their Convictions,--their Faith asto this wondrous Universe, and what rights, duties, capabilities they havethere; which stands sanctioned therefore, by Necessity itself, if not by aseen Deity, then by an unseen one. Other laws, whereof there are alwaysenough ready-made, are usurpations; which men do not obey, but rebelagainst, and abolish, by their earliest convenience.

The question of questions accordingly were, Who is it that especially forrebellers and abolishers, can make a Constitution? He that can image forththe general Belief when there is one; that can impart one when, as here,there is none. A most rare man; ever as of old a god-missioned man! Here,however, in defect of such transcendent supreme man, Time with its infinitesuccession of merely superior men, each yielding his little contribution,does much. Force likewise (for, as Antiquarian Philosophers teach, theroyal Sceptre was from the first something of a Hammer, to crack such headsas could not be convinced) will all along find somewhat to do. And thus inperpetual abolition and reparation, rending and mending, with struggle andstrife, with present evil and the hope and effort towards future good, mustthe Constitution, as all human things do, build itself forward; or unbuilditself, and sink, as it can and may. O Sieyes, and ye other Committeemen,and Twelve Hundred miscellaneous individuals from all parts of France! What is the Belief of France, and yours, if ye knew it? Properly thatthere shall be no Belief; that all formulas be swallowed. The Constitutionwhich will suit that? Alas, too clearly, a No-Constitution, an Anarchy;--which also, in due season, shall be vouchsafed you.

But, after all, what can an unfortunate National Assembly do? Consideronly this, that there are Twelve Hundred miscellaneous individuals; not aunit of whom but has his own thinking-apparatus, his own speaking-apparatus! In every unit of them is some belief and wish, different foreach, both that France should be regenerated, and also that he individuallyshould do it. Twelve Hundred separate Forces, yoked miscellaneously to anyobject, miscellaneously to all sides of it; and bid pull for life!

Or is it the nature of National Assemblies generally to do, with endlesslabour and clangour, Nothing? Are Representative Governments mostly atbottom Tyrannies too! Shall we say, the Tyrants, the ambitious contentiousPersons, from all corners of the country do, in this manner, get gatheredinto one place; and there, with motion and counter-motion, with jargon andhubbub, cancel one another, like the fabulous Kilkenny Cats; and produce,for net-result, zero;--the country meanwhile governing or guiding itself,by such wisdom, recognised or for most part unrecognised, as may exist inindividual heads here and there?--Nay, even that were a great improvement: for, of old, with their Guelf Factions and Ghibelline Factions, with theirRed Roses and White Roses, they were wont to cancel the whole country aswell. Besides they do it now in a much narrower cockpit; within the fourwalls of their Assembly House, and here and there an outpost of Hustingsand Barrel-heads; do it with tongues too, not with swords:--all whichimprovements, in the art of producing zero, are they not great? Nay, bestof all, some happy Continents (as the Western one, with its Savannahs,where whosoever has four willing limbs finds food under his feet, and aninfinite sky over his head) can do without governing.--What Sphinx-questions; which the distracted world, in these very generations, mustanswer or die!

Chapter 1.6.II.

The Constituent Assembly.

One thing an elected Assembly of Twelve Hundred is fit for: Destroying. Which indeed is but a more decided exercise of its natural talent for DoingNothing. Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things willdestroy themselves.

So and not otherwise proved it with an august National Assembly. It tookthe name, Constituent, as if its mission and function had been to constructor build; which also, with its whole soul, it endeavoured to do: yet, inthe fates, in the nature of things, there lay for it precisely of allfunctions the most opposite to that. Singular, what Gospels men willbelieve; even Gospels according to Jean Jacques! It was the fixed Faith ofthese National Deputies, as of all thinking Frenchmen, that theConstitution could be made; that they, there and then, were called to makeit. How, with the toughness of Old Hebrews or Ishmaelite Moslem, did theotherwise light unbelieving People persist in this their Credo quiaimpossibile ; and front the armed world with it; and grow fanatic, and evenheroic, and do exploits by it! The Constituent Assembly's Constitution,and several others, will, being printed and not manuscript, survive tofuture generations, as an instructive well-nigh incredible document of theTime: the most significant Picture of the then existing France; or atlowest, Picture of these men's Picture of it.

But in truth and seriousness, what could the National Assembly have done? The thing to be done was, actually as they said, to regenerate France; toabolish the old France, and make a new one; quietly or forcibly, byconcession or by violence, this, by the Law of Nature, has becomeinevitable. With what degree of violence, depends on the wisdom of thosethat preside over it. With perfect wisdom on the part of the NationalAssembly, it had all been otherwise; but whether, in any wise, it couldhave been pacific, nay other than bloody and convulsive, may still be aquestion.

Grant, meanwhile, that this Constituent Assembly does to the last continueto be something. With a sigh, it sees itself incessantly forced away fromits infinite divine task, of perfecting 'the Theory of Irregular Verbs,'--to finite terrestrial tasks, which latter have still a significance for us. It is the cynosure of revolutionary France, this National Assembly. Allwork of Government has fallen into its hands, or under its control; all menlook to it for guidance. In the middle of that huge Revolt of Twenty-fivemillions, it hovers always aloft as Carroccio or Battle-Standard, impellingand impelled, in the most confused way; if it cannot give much guidance, itwill still seem to give some. It emits pacificatory Proclamations, not afew; with more or with less result. It authorises the enrolment ofNational Guards,--lest Brigands come to devour us, and reap the unripecrops. It sends missions to quell 'effervescences;' to deliver men fromthe Lanterne. It can listen to congratulatory Addresses, which arrivedaily by the sackful; mostly in King Cambyses' vein: also to Petitions andcomplaints from all mortals; so that every mortal's complaint, if it cannotget redressed, may at least hear itself complain. For the rest, an augustNational Assembly can produce Parliamentary Eloquence; and appointCommittees. Committees of the Constitution, of Reports, of Researches; andof much else: which again yield mountains of Printed Paper; the theme ofnew Parliamentary Eloquence, in bursts, or in plenteous smooth-flowingfloods. And so, from the waste vortex whereon all things go whirling andgrinding, Organic Laws, or the similitude of such, slowly emerge.

With endless debating, we get the Rights of Man written down andpromulgated: true paper basis of all paper Constitutions. Neglecting, crythe opponents, to declare the Duties of Man! Forgetting, answer we, toascertain the Mights of Man;--one of the fatalest omissions!--Nay,sometimes, as on the Fourth of August, our National Assembly, firedsuddenly by an almost preternatural enthusiasm, will get through wholemasses of work in one night. A memorable night, this Fourth of August: Dignitaries temporal and spiritual; Peers, Archbishops, Parlement-Presidents, each outdoing the other in patriotic devotedness, comesuccessively to throw their (untenable) possessions on the 'altar of thefatherland.' With louder and louder vivats, for indeed it is 'afterdinner' too,--they abolish Tithes, Seignorial Dues, Gabelle, excessivePreservation of Game; nay Privilege, Immunity, Feudalism root and branch;then appoint a Te Deum for it; and so, finally, disperse about three in themorning, striking the stars with their sublime heads. Such night,unforeseen but for ever memorable, was this of the Fourth of August 1789. Miraculous, or semi-miraculous, some seem to think it. A new Night ofPentecost, shall we say, shaped according to the new Time, and new Churchof Jean Jacques Rousseau? It had its causes; also its effects.

In such manner labour the National Deputies; perfecting their Theory ofIrregular Verbs; governing France, and being governed by it; with toil andnoise;--cutting asunder ancient intolerable bonds; and, for new ones,assiduously spinning ropes of sand. Were their labours a nothing or asomething, yet the eyes of all France being reverently fixed on them,History can never very long leave them altogether out of sight.

For the present, if we glance into that Assembly Hall of theirs, it will befound, as is natural, 'most irregular.' As many as 'a hundred members areon their feet at once;' no rule in making motions, or only commencements ofa rule; Spectators' Gallery allowed to applaud, and even to hiss; (ArthurYoung, i. 111.) President, appointed once a fortnight, raising many timesno serene head above the waves. Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages,like does begin arranging itself to like; the perennial rule, Ubi hominessunt modi sunt, proves valid. Rudiments of Methods disclose themselves;rudiments of Parties. There is a Right Side (Cote Droit), a Left Side(Cote Gauche); sitting on M. le President's right hand, or on his left: the Cote Droit conservative; the Cote Gauche destructive. Intermediate isAnglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its Mouniers,its Lallys,--fast verging towards nonentity. Preeminent, on the RightSide, pleads and perorates Cazales, the Dragoon-captain, eloquent, mildlyfervent; earning for himself the shadow of a name. There also blustersBarrel-Mirabeau, the Younger Mirabeau, not without wit: dusky d'Espremenildoes nothing but sniff and ejaculate; might, it is fondly thought, layprostrate the Elder Mirabeau himself, would he but try, (BiographieUniverselle, para D'Espremenil (by Beaulieu).)--which he does not. Lastand greatest, see, for one moment, the Abbe Maury; with his jesuitic eyes,his impassive brass face, 'image of all the cardinal sins.' Indomitable,unquenchable, he fights jesuitico-rhetorically; with toughest lungs andheart; for Throne, especially for Altar and Tithes. So that a shrill voiceexclaims once, from the Gallery: "Messieurs of the Clergy, you have to beshaved; if you wriggle too much, you will get cut." (Dictionnaire desHommes Marquans, ii. 519.)

The Left side is also called the d'Orleans side; and sometimes derisively,the Palais Royal. And yet, so confused, real-imaginary seems everything,'it is doubtful,' as Mirabeau said, 'whether d'Orleans himself belong tothat same d'Orleans Party.' What can be known and seen is, that his moon-visage does beam forth from that point of space. There likewise sitsseagreen Robespierre; throwing in his light weight, with decision, not yetwith effect. A thin lean Puritan and Precisian; he would make away withformulas; yet lives, moves, and has his being, wholly in formulas, ofanother sort. 'Peuple,' such according to Robespierre ought to be theRoyal method of promulgating laws, 'Peuple, this is the Law I have framedfor thee; dost thou accept it?'--answered from Right Side, from Centre andLeft, by inextinguishable laughter. (Moniteur, No. 67 (in Hist.Parl.).) Yet men of insight discern that the Seagreen may by chance go far: "thisman," observes Mirabeau, "will do somewhat; he believes every word hesays."

Abbe Sieyes is busy with mere Constitutional work: wherein, unluckily,fellow-workmen are less pliable than, with one who has completed theScience of Polity, they ought to be. Courage, Sieyes nevertheless! Sometwenty months of heroic travail, of contradiction from the stupid, and theConstitution shall be built; the top-stone of it brought out withshouting,--say rather, the top-paper, for it is all Paper; and thou hastdone in it what the Earth or the Heaven could require, thy utmost. Notelikewise this Trio; memorable for several things; memorable were it onlythat their history is written in an epigram: 'whatsoever these Three havein hand,' it is said, 'Duport thinks it, Barnave speaks it, Lameth doesit.' (See Toulongeon, i. c. 3.)

But royal Mirabeau? Conspicuous among all parties, raised above and beyondthem all, this man rises more and more. As we often say, he has an eye, heis a reality; while others are formulas and eye-glasses. In the Transienthe will detect the Perennial, find some firm footing even among Paper-vortexes. His fame is gone forth to all lands; it gladdened the heart ofthe crabbed old Friend of Men himself before he died. The very Postilionsof inns have heard of Mirabeau: when an impatient Traveller complains thatthe team is insufficient, his Postilion answers, "Yes, Monsieur, thewheelers are weak; but my mirabeau (main horse), you see, is a right one,mais mon mirabeau est excellent." (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p.255.)

And now, Reader, thou shalt quit this noisy Discrepancy of a NationalAssembly; not (if thou be of humane mind) without pity. Twelve Hundredbrother men are there, in the centre of Twenty-five Millions; fighting sofiercely with Fate and with one another; struggling their lives out, asmost sons of Adam do, for that which profiteth not. Nay, on the whole, itis admitted further to be very dull. "Dull as this day's Assembly," saidsome one. "Why date, Pourquoi dater?" answered Mirabeau.

Consider that they are Twelve Hundred; that they not only speak, but readtheir speeches; and even borrow and steal speeches to read! With TwelveHundred fluent speakers, and their Noah's Deluge of vociferous commonplace,unattainable silence may well seem the one blessing of Life. But figureTwelve Hundred pamphleteers; droning forth perpetual pamphlets: and no manto gag them! Neither, as in the American Congress, do the arrangementsseem perfect. A Senator has not his own Desk and Newspaper here; ofTobacco (much less of Pipes) there is not the slightest provision. Conversation itself must be transacted in a low tone, with continualinterruption: only 'pencil Notes' circulate freely; 'in incredible numbersto the foot of the very tribune.' (See Dumont (pp. 159-67); Arthur Young,&c.)--Such work is it, regenerating a Nation; perfecting one's Theory ofIrregular Verbs!

Chapter 1.6.III.

The General Overturn.

Of the King's Court, for the present, there is almost nothing whatever tobe said. Silent, deserted are these halls; Royalty languishes forsaken ofits war-god and all its hopes, till once the Oeil-de-Boeuf rally again. The sceptre is departed from King Louis; is gone over to the Salles desMenus, to the Paris Townhall, or one knows not whither. In the July days,while all ears were yet deafened by the crash of the Bastille, andMinisters and Princes were scattered to the four winds, it seemed as if thevery Valets had grown heavy of hearing. Besenval, also in flight towardsInfinite Space, but hovering a little at Versailles, was addressing hisMajesty personally for an Order about post-horses; when, lo, 'the Valet inwaiting places himself familiarly between his Majesty and me,' stretchingout his rascal neck to learn what it was! His Majesty, in sudden choler,whirled round; made a clutch at the tongs: 'I gently prevented him; hegrasped my hand in thankfulness; and I noticed tears in his eyes.' (Besenval, iii. 419.)

Poor King; for French Kings also are men! Louis Fourteenth himself onceclutched the tongs, and even smote with them; but then it was at Louvois,and Dame Maintenon ran up.--The Queen sits weeping in her inner apartments,surrounded by weak women: she is 'at the height of unpopularity;'universally regarded as the evil genius of France. Her friends andfamiliar counsellors have all fled; and fled, surely, on the foolishesterrand. The Chateau Polignac still frowns aloft, on its 'bold andenormous' cubical rock, amid the blooming champaigns, amid the bluegirdling mountains of Auvergne: (Arthur Young, i. 165.) but no Duke andDuchess Polignac look forth from it; they have fled, they have 'met Neckerat Bale;' they shall not return. That France should see her Nobles resistthe Irresistible, Inevitable, with the face of angry men, was unhappy, notunexpected: but with the face and sense of pettish children? This was herpeculiarity. They understood nothing; would understand nothing. Does not,at this hour, a new Polignac, first-born of these Two, sit reflective inthe Castle of Ham; (A.D. 1835.) in an astonishment he will never recoverfrom; the most confused of existing mortals?

King Louis has his new Ministry: mere Popularities; Old-PresidentPompignan; Necker, coming back in triumph; and other such. (Montgaillard,ii. 108.) But what will it avail him? As was said, the sceptre, all butthe wooden gilt sceptre, has departed elsewhither. Volition, determinationis not in this man: only innocence, indolence; dependence on all personsbut himself, on all circumstances but the circumstances he were lord of. So troublous internally is our Versailles and its work. Beautiful, if seenfrom afar, resplendent like a Sun; seen near at hand, a mere Sun's-Atmosphere, hiding darkness, confused ferment of ruin!

But over France, there goes on the indisputablest 'destruction offormulas;' transaction of realities that follow therefrom. So manymillions of persons, all gyved, and nigh strangled, with formulas; whoseLife nevertheless, at least the digestion and hunger of it, was realenough! Heaven has at length sent an abundant harvest; but what profits itthe poor man, when Earth with her formulas interposes? Industry, in thesetimes of Insurrection, must needs lie dormant; capital, as usual, notcirculating, but stagnating timorously in nooks. The poor man is short ofwork, is therefore short of money; nay even had he money, bread is not tobe bought for it. Were it plotting of Aristocrats, plotting of d'Orleans;were it Brigands, preternatural terror, and the clang of Phoebus Apollo'ssilver bow,--enough, the markets are scarce of grain, plentiful only intumult. Farmers seem lazy to thresh;--being either 'bribed;' or needing nobribe, with prices ever rising, with perhaps rent itself no longer sopressing. Neither, what is singular, do municipal enactments, 'That alongwith so many measures of wheat you shall sell so many of rye,' and otherthe like, much mend the matter. Dragoons with drawn swords stand rankedamong the corn-sacks, often more dragoons than sacks. (Arthur Young, i.129, &c.) Meal-mobs abound; growing into mobs of a still darker quality.

Starvation has been known among the French Commonalty before this; knownand familiar. Did we not see them, in the year 1775, presenting, in sallowfaces, in wretchedness and raggedness, their Petition of Grievances; and,for answer, getting a brand-new Gallows forty feet high? Hunger andDarkness, through long years! For look back on that earlier Paris Riot,when a Great Personage, worn out by debauchery, was believed to be in wantof Blood-baths; and Mothers, in worn raiment, yet with living hearts underit, 'filled the public places' with their wild Rachel-cries,--stilled alsoby the Gallows. Twenty years ago, the Friend of Men (preaching to thedeaf) described the Limousin Peasants as wearing a pain-stricken (souffre-douleur) look, a look past complaint, 'as if the oppression of the greatwere like the hail and the thunder, a thing irremediable, the ordinance ofNature.' (Fils Adoptif: Memoires de Mirabeau, i. 364-394.) And now, ifin some great hour, the shock of a falling Bastille should awaken you; andit were found to be the ordinance of Art merely; and remediable,reversible!

Or has the Reader forgotten that 'flood of savages,' which, in sight of thesame Friend of Men, descended from the mountains at Mont d'Or? Lank-hairedhaggard faces; shapes rawboned, in high sabots; in woollen jupes, withleather girdles studded with copper-nails! They rocked from foot to foot,and beat time with their elbows too, as the quarrel and battle which wasnot long in beginning went on; shouting fiercely; the lank faces distortedinto the similitude of a cruel laugh. For they were darkened and hardened: long had they been the prey of excise-men and tax-men; of 'clerks with thecold spurt of their pen.' It was the fixed prophecy of our old Marquis,which no man would listen to, that 'such Government by Blind-man's-buff,stumbling along too far, would end by the General Overturn, the CulbuteGenerale!'

No man would listen, each went his thoughtless way;--and Time and Destinyalso travelled on. The Government by Blind-man's-buff, stumbling along,has reached the precipice inevitable for it. Dull Drudgery, driven on, byclerks with the cold dastard spurt of their pen, has been driven--into aCommunion of Drudges! For now, moreover, there have come the strangestconfused tidings; by Paris Journals with their paper wings; or still moreportentous, where no Journals are, (See Arthur Young, i. 137, 150, &c.) byrumour and conjecture: Oppression not inevitable; a Bastille prostrate,and the Constitution fast getting ready! Which Constitution, if it besomething and not nothing, what can it be but bread to eat?

The Traveller, 'walking up hill bridle in hand,' overtakes 'a poor woman;'the image, as such commonly are, of drudgery and scarcity; 'looking sixtyyears of age, though she is not yet twenty-eight.' They have sevenchildren, her poor drudge and she: a farm, with one cow, which helps tomake the children soup; also one little horse, or garron. They have rentsand quit-rents, Hens to pay to this Seigneur, Oat-sacks to that; King'staxes, Statute-labour, Church-taxes, taxes enough;--and think the timesinexpressible. She has heard that somewhere, in some manner, something isto be done for the poor: "God send it soon; for the dues and taxes crushus down (nous ecrasent)!" (Ibid. i. 134.)

Fair prophecies are spoken, but they are not fulfilled. There have beenNotables, Assemblages, turnings out and comings in. Intriguing andmanoeuvring; Parliamentary eloquence and arguing, Greek meeting Greek inhigh places, has long gone on; yet still bread comes not. The harvest isreaped and garnered; yet still we have no bread. Urged by despair and byhope, what can Drudgery do, but rise, as predicted, and produce the GeneralOverturn?

Fancy, then, some Five full-grown Millions of such gaunt figures, withtheir haggard faces (figures haves); in woollen jupes, with copper-studdedleather girths, and high sabots,--starting up to ask, as in forest-roarings, their washed Upper-Classes, after long unreviewed centuries,virtually this question: How have ye treated us; how have ye taught us,fed us, and led us, while we toiled for you? The answer can be read inflames, over the nightly summer sky. This is the feeding and leading wehave had of you: EMPTINESS,--of pocket, of stomach, of head, and of heart. Behold there is nothing in us; nothing but what Nature gives her wildchildren of the desert: Ferocity and Appetite; Strength grounded onHunger. Did ye mark among your Rights of Man, that man was not to die ofstarvation, while there was bread reaped by him? It is among the Mights ofMan.

Seventy-two Chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolaisalone: this seems the centre of the conflagration; but it has spread overDauphine, Alsace, the Lyonnais; the whole South-East is in a blaze. Allover the North, from Rouen to Metz, disorder is abroad: smugglers of saltgo openly in armed bands: the barriers of towns are burnt; toll-gatherers,tax-gatherers, official persons put to flight. 'It was thought,' saysYoung, 'the people, from hunger, would revolt;' and we see they have doneit. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now finding hope indesperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring the Church bellby way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the work. (See Hist. Parl.ii. 243-6.) Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge: such work as we canimagine!

Ill stands it now with the Seigneur, who, for example, 'has walled up theonly Fountain of the Township;' who has ridden high on his chartier andparchments; who has preserved Game not wisely but too well. Churches also,and Canonries, are sacked, without mercy; which have shorn the flock tooclose, forgetting to feed it. Wo to the land over which Sansculottism, inits day of vengeance, tramps roughshod,--shod in sabots! HighbredSeigneurs, with their delicate women and little ones, had to 'fly half-naked,' under cloud of night; glad to escape the flames, and even worse. You meet them at the tables-d'hote of inns; making wise reflections orfoolish that 'rank is destroyed;' uncertain whither they shall now wend. (See Young, i. 149, &c.) The metayer will find it convenient to be slackin paying rent. As for the Tax-gatherer, he, long hunting as a biped ofprey, may now get hunted as one; his Majesty's Exchequer will not 'fill upthe Deficit,' this season: it is the notion of many that a PatriotMajesty, being the Restorer of French Liberty, has abolished most taxes,though, for their private ends, some men make a secret of it.

Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all Delusionsare, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. Forif there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that noLie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from timeto time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death writtendown against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast,advance incessantly towards their hour. 'The sign of a Grand Seigneurbeing landlord,' says the vehement plain-spoken Arthur Young, 'are wastes,landes, deserts, ling: go to his residence, you will find it in the middleof a forest, peopled with deer, wild boars and wolves. The fields arescenes of pitiable management, as the houses are of misery. To see so manymillions of hands, that would be industrious, all idle and starving: Oh,if I were legislator of France, for one day, I would make these great lordsskip again!' (Arthur Young, i. 12, 48, 84, &c.) O Arthur, thou nowactually beholdest them skip:--wilt thou grow to grumble at that too?

For long years and generations it lasted, but the time came. Featherbrain,whom no reasoning and no pleading could touch, the glare of the firebrandhad to illuminate: there remained but that method. Consider it, look atit! The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumedSeigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil-de-Boeuf, has an alchemy wherebyhe will extract from her the third nettle, and name it Rent and Law: suchan arrangement must end. Ought it? But, O most fearful is such an ending! Let those, to whom God, in His great mercy, has granted time and space,prepare another and milder one.

To women it is a matter of wonder that the Seigneurs did not do somethingto help themselves; say, combine, and arm: for there were a 'hundred andfifty thousand of them,' all violent enough. Unhappily, a hundred andfifty thousand, scattered over wide Provinces, divided by mutual ill-will,cannot combine. The highest Seigneurs, as we have seen, had alreadyemigrated,--with a view of putting France to the blush. Neither are armsnow the peculiar property of Seigneurs; but of every mortal who has tenshillings, wherewith to buy a secondhand firelock.

Besides, those starving Peasants, after all, have not four feet and claws,that you could keep them down permanently in that manner. They are noteven of black colour; they are mere Unwashed Seigneurs; and a Seigneur toohas human bowels!--The Seigneurs did what they could; enrolled in NationalGuards; fled, with shrieks, complaining to Heaven and Earth. One Seigneur,famed Memmay of Quincey, near Vesoul, invited all the rustics of hisneighbourhood to a banquet; blew up his Chateau and them with gunpowder;and instantaneously vanished, no man yet knows whither. (Hist. Parl. ii.161.) Some half dozen years after, he came back; and demonstrated that itwas by accident.

Nor are the authorities idle: though unluckily, all Authorities,Municipalities and such like, are in the uncertain transitionary state;getting regenerated from old Monarchic to new Democratic; no Official yetknows clearly what he is. Nevertheless, Mayors old or new do gatherMarechaussees, National Guards, Troops of the line; justice, of the mostsummary sort, is not wanting. The Electoral Committee of Macon, though buta Committee, goes the length of hanging, for its own behoof, as many astwenty. The Prevot of Dauphine traverses the country 'with a movablecolumn,' with tipstaves, gallows-ropes; for gallows any tree will serve,and suspend its culprit, or 'thirteen' culprits.

Unhappy country! How is the fair gold-and-green of the ripe bright Yeardefaced with horrid blackness: black ashes of Chateaus, black bodies ofgibetted Men! Industry has ceased in it; not sounds of the hammer and saw,but of the tocsin and alarm-drum. The sceptre has departed, whither oneknows not;--breaking itself in pieces: here impotent, there tyrannous.National Guards are unskilful, and of doubtful purpose; Soldiers areinclined to mutiny: there is danger that they two may quarrel, danger thatthey may agree. Strasburg has seen riots: a Townhall torn to shreds, itsarchives scattered white on the winds; drunk soldiers embracing drunkcitizens for three days, and Mayor Dietrich and Marshal Rochambeau reducednigh to desperation. (Arthur Young, i. 141.--Dampmartin: Evenemens qui sesont passes sous mes yeux, i. 105-127.)

Through the middle of all which phenomena, is seen, on his triumphanttransit, 'escorted,' through Befort for instance, 'by fifty NationalHorsemen and all the military music of the place,'--M. Necker, returningfrom Bale! Glorious as the meridian; though poor Necker himself partlyguesses whither it is leading. (Biographie Universelle, para Necker (byLally-Tollendal).) One highest culminating day, at the Paris Townhall;with immortal vivats, with wife and daughter kneeling publicly to kiss hishand; with Besenval's pardon granted,--but indeed revoked before sunset: one highest day, but then lower days, and ever lower, down even to lowest! Such magic is in a name; and in the want of a name. Like some enchantedMambrino's Helmet, essential to victory, comes this 'Saviour of France;'beshouted, becymballed by the world:--alas, so soon, to be disenchanted, tobe pitched shamefully over the lists as a Barber's Bason! Gibbon 'couldwish to shew him' (in this ejected, Barber's-Bason state) to any man ofsolidity, who were minded to have the soul burnt out of him, and become acaput mortuum, by Ambition, unsuccessful or successful. (Gibbon'sLetters.)

Another small phasis we add, and no more: how, in the Autumn months, oursharp-tempered Arthur has been 'pestered for some days past,' by shot,lead-drops and slugs, 'rattling five or six times into my chaise and aboutmy ears;' all the mob of the country gone out to kill game! (Young, i.176.) It is even so. On the Cliffs of Dover, over all the Marches ofFrance, there appear, this autumn, two Signs on the Earth: emigrantflights of French Seigneurs; emigrant winged flights of French Game! Finished, one may say, or as good as finished, is the Preservation of Gameon this Earth; completed for endless Time. What part it had to play in theHistory of Civilisation is played plaudite; exeat!

In this manner does Sansculottism blaze up, illustrating many things;--producing, among the rest, as we saw, on the Fourth of August, that semi-miraculous Night of Pentecost in the National Assembly; semi miraculous,which had its causes, and its effects. Feudalism is struck dead; not onparchment only, and by ink; but in very fact, by fire; say, by self-combustion. This conflagration of the South-East will abate; will be gotscattered, to the West, or elsewhither: extinguish it will not, till thefuel be all done.

Chapter 1.6.IV.

In Queue.

If we look now at Paris, one thing is too evident: that the Baker's shopshave got their Queues, or Tails; their long strings of purchasers, arrangedin tail, so that the first come be the first served,--were the shop onceopen! This waiting in tail, not seen since the early days of July, againmakes its appearance in August. In time, we shall see it perfected bypractice to the rank almost of an art; and the art, or quasi-art, ofstanding in tail become one of the characteristics of the Parisian People,distinguishing them from all other Peoples whatsoever.

But consider, while work itself is so scarce, how a man must not onlyrealise money; but stand waiting (if his wife is too weak to wait andstruggle) for half days in the Tail, till he get it changed for dear badbread! Controversies, to the length, sometimes of blood and battery, mustarise in these exasperated Queues. Or if no controversy, then it is butone accordant Pange Lingua of complaint against the Powers that be. Francehas begun her long Curriculum of Hungering, instructive and productivebeyond Academic Curriculums; which extends over some seven most strenuousyears. As Jean Paul says, of his own Life, 'to a great height shall thebusiness of Hungering go.'

Or consider, in strange contrast, the jubilee Ceremonies; for, in general,the aspect of Paris presents these two features: jubilee ceremonials andscarcity of victual. Processions enough walk in jubilee; of Young Women,decked and dizened, their ribands all tricolor; moving with song and tabor,to the Shrine of Sainte Genevieve, to thank her that the Bastille is down.The Strong Men of the Market, and the Strong Women, fail not with theirbouquets and speeches. Abbe Fauchet, famed in such work (for Abbe Lefevrecould only distribute powder) blesses tricolor cloth for the NationalGuard; and makes it a National Tricolor Flag; victorious, or to bevictorious, in the cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world.Fauchet, we say, is the man for Te-Deums, and public Consecrations;--towhich, as in this instance of the Flag, our National Guard will 'reply withvolleys of musketry,' Church and Cathedral though it be; (See Hist. Parl.iii. 20; Mercier, Nouveau Paris, &c.) filling Notre Dame with such noisiestfuliginous Amen, significant of several things.

On the whole, we will say our new Mayor Bailly; our new CommanderLafayette, named also 'Scipio-Americanus,' have bought their prefermentdear. Bailly rides in gilt state-coach, with beefeaters and sumptuosity;Camille Desmoulins, and others, sniffing at him for it: Scipio bestridesthe 'white charger,' and waves with civic plumes in sight of all France. Neither of them, however, does it for nothing; but, in truth, at anexorbitant rate. At this rate, namely: of feeding Paris, and keeping itfrom fighting. Out of the City-funds, some seventeen thousand of theutterly destitute are employed digging on Montmartre, at tenpence a day,which buys them, at market price, almost two pounds of bad bread;--theylook very yellow, when Lafayette goes to harangue them. The Townhall is intravail, night and day; it must bring forth Bread, a MunicipalConstitution, regulations of all kinds, curbs on the Sansculottic Press;above all, Bread, Bread.

Purveyors prowl the country far and wide, with the appetite of lions;detect hidden grain, purchase open grain; by gentle means or forcible, mustand will find grain. A most thankless task; and so difficult, sodangerous,--even if a man did gain some trifle by it! On the 19th August,there is food for one day. (See Bailly, Memoires, ii. 137-409.) Complaints there are that the food is spoiled, and produces an effect onthe intestines: not corn but plaster-of-Paris! Which effect on theintestines, as well as that 'smarting in the throat and palate,' a TownhallProclamation warns you to disregard, or even to consider as drastic-beneficial. The Mayor of Saint-Denis, so black was his bread, has, by adyspeptic populace, been hanged on the Lanterne there. National Guardsprotect the Paris Corn-Market: first ten suffice; then six hundred. (Hist. Parl. ii. 421.) Busy are ye, Bailly, Brissot de Warville,Condorcet, and ye others!

For, as just hinted, there is a Municipal Constitution to be made too. Theold Bastille Electors, after some ten days of psalmodying over theirglorious victory, began to hear it asked, in a splenetic tone, Who put youthere? They accordingly had to give place, not without moanings, andaudible growlings on both sides, to a new larger Body, specially electedfor that post. Which new Body, augmented, altered, then fixed finally atthe number of Three Hundred, with the title of Town Representatives(Representans de la Commune), now sits there; rightly portioned intoCommittees; assiduous making a Constitution; at all moments when notseeking flour.

And such a Constitution; little short of miraculous: one that shall'consolidate the Revolution'! The Revolution is finished, then? MayorBailly and all respectable friends of Freedom would fain think so. YourRevolution, like jelly sufficiently boiled, needs only to be poured intoshapes, of Constitution, and 'consolidated' therein? Could it, indeed,contrive to cool; which last, however, is precisely the doubtful thing, oreven the not doubtful!

Unhappy friends of Freedom; consolidating a Revolution! They must sit atwork there, their pavilion spread on very Chaos; between two hostileworlds, the Upper Court-world, the Nether Sansculottic one; and, beaten onby both, toil painfully, perilously,--doing, in sad literal earnest, 'theimpossible.'

Chapter 1.6.V.

The Fourth Estate.

Pamphleteering opens its abysmal throat wider and wider: never to closemore. Our Philosophes, indeed, rather withdraw; after the manner ofMarmontel, 'retiring in disgust the first day.' Abbe Raynal, grown grayand quiet in his Marseilles domicile, is little content with this work; thelast literary act of the man will again be an act of rebellion: anindignant Letter to the Constituent Assembly; answered by 'the order of theday.' Thus also Philosophe Morellet puckers discontented brows; beingindeed threatened in his benefices by that Fourth of August: it is clearlygoing too far. How astonishing that those 'haggard figures in woollenjupes' would not rest as satisfied with Speculation, and victoriousAnalysis, as we!

Alas, yes: Speculation, Philosophism, once the ornament and wealth of thesaloon, will now coin itself into mere Practical Propositions, andcirculate on street and highway, universally; with results! A FourthEstate, of Able Editors, springs up; increases and multiplies;irrepressible, incalculable. New Printers, new Journals, and ever new (soprurient is the world), let our Three Hundred curb and consolidate as theycan! Loustalot, under the wing of Prudhomme dull-blustering Printer, editsweekly his Revolutions de Paris; in an acrid, emphatic manner. Acrid,corrosive, as the spirit of sloes and copperas, is Marat, Friend of thePeople; struck already with the fact that the National Assembly, so full ofAristocrats, 'can do nothing,' except dissolve itself, and make way for abetter; that the Townhall Representatives are little other than babblersand imbeciles, if not even knaves. Poor is this man; squalid, and dwellsin garrets; a man unlovely to the sense, outward and inward; a man forbid;--and is becoming fanatical, possessed with fixed-idea. Cruel lusus ofNature! Did Nature, O poor Marat, as in cruel sport, knead thee out of herleavings, and miscellaneous waste clay; and fling thee forth stepdamelike,a Distraction into this distracted Eighteenth Century? Work is appointedthee there; which thou shalt do. The Three Hundred have summoned and willagain summon Marat: but always he croaks forth answer sufficient; alwayshe will defy them, or elude them; and endure no gag.

Carra, 'Ex-secretary of a decapitated Hospodar,' and then of a Necklace-Cardinal; likewise pamphleteer, Adventurer in many scenes and lands,--drawsnigh to Mercier, of the Tableau de Paris; and, with foam on his lips,proposes an Annales Patriotiques. The Moniteur goes its prosperous way;Barrere 'weeps,' on Paper as yet loyal; Rivarol, Royou are not idle. Deepcalls to deep: your Domine Salvum Fac Regem shall awaken Pange Lingua;with an Ami-du-Peuple there is a King's-Friend Newspaper, Ami-du-Roi. Camille Desmoulins has appointed himself Procureur-General de la Lanterne,Attorney-General of the Lamp-iron; and pleads, not with atrocity, under anatrocious title; editing weekly his brilliant Revolutions of Paris andBrabant. Brilliant, we say: for if, in that thick murk of Journalism,with its dull blustering, with its fixed or loose fury, any ray of geniusgreet thee, be sure it is Camille's. The thing that Camille teaches he,with his light finger, adorns: brightness plays, gentle, unexpected, amidhorrible confusions; often is the word of Camille worth reading, when noother's is. Questionable Camille, how thou glitterest with a fallen,rebellious, yet still semi-celestial light; as is the star-light on thebrow of Lucifer! Son of the Morning, into what times and what lands, artthou fallen!

But in all things is good;--though not good for 'consolidatingRevolutions.' Thousand wagon-loads of this Pamphleteering and Newspapermatter, lie rotting slowly in the Public Libraries of our Europe. Snatchedfrom the great gulf, like oysters by bibliomaniac pearl-divers, there mustthey first rot, then what was pearl, in Camille or others, may be seen assuch, and continue as such.

Nor has public speaking declined, though Lafayette and his Patrols looksour on it. Loud always is the Palais Royal, loudest the Cafe de Foy; sucha miscellany of Citizens and Citizenesses circulating there. 'Now andthen,' according to Camille, 'some Citizens employ the liberty of the pressfor a private purpose; so that this or the other Patriot finds himselfshort of his watch or pocket-handkerchief!' But, for the rest, inCamille's opinion, nothing can be a livelier image of the Roman Forum. 'APatriot proposes his motion; if it finds any supporters, they make himmount on a chair, and speak. If he is applauded, he prospers and redacts;if he is hissed, he goes his ways.' Thus they, circulating and perorating. Tall shaggy Marquis Saint-Huruge, a man that has had losses, and hasdeserved them, is seen eminent, and also heard. 'Bellowing' is thecharacter of his voice, like that of a Bull of Bashan; voice which drownsall voices, which causes frequently the hearts of men to leap. Cracked orhalf-cracked is this tall Marquis's head; uncracked are his lungs; thecracked and the uncracked shall alike avail him.

Consider further that each of the Forty-eight Districts has its ownCommittee; speaking and motioning continually; aiding in the search forgrain, in the search for a Constitution; checking and spurring the poorThree Hundred of the Townhall. That Danton, with a 'voice reverberatingfrom the domes,' is President of the Cordeliers District; which has alreadybecome a Goshen of Patriotism. That apart from the 'seventeen thousandutterly necessitous, digging on Montmartre,' most of whom, indeed, have gotpasses, and been dismissed into Space 'with four shillings,'--there is astrike, or union, of Domestics out of place; who assemble for publicspeaking: next, a strike of Tailors, for even they will strike and speak;further, a strike of Journeymen Cordwainers; a strike of Apothecaries: sodear is bread. (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 359, 417, 423.) All these,having struck, must speak; generally under the open canopy; and passresolutions;--Lafayette and his Patrols watching them suspiciously from thedistance.

Unhappy mortals: such tugging and lugging, and throttling of one another,to divide, in some not intolerable way, the joint Felicity of man in thisEarth; when the whole lot to be divided is such a 'feast of shells!'--Diligent are the Three Hundred; none equals Scipio Americanus in dealingwith mobs. But surely all these things bode ill for the consolidating of aRevolution.

BOOK VII.

THE INSURRECTION OF WOMEN

Chapter 1.7.I.

Patrollotism.

No, Friends, this Revolution is not of the consolidating kind. Do notfires, fevers, sown seeds, chemical mixtures, men, events; all embodimentsof Force that work in this miraculous Complex of Forces, named Universe,--go on growing, through their natural phases and developments, eachaccording to its kind; reach their height, reach their visible decline;finally sink under, vanishing, and what we call die? They all grow; thereis nothing but what grows, and shoots forth into its special expansion,--once give it leave to spring. Observe too that each grows with a rapidityproportioned, in general, to the madness and unhealthiness there is in it: slow regular growth, though this also ends in death, is what we name healthand sanity.

A Sansculottism, which has prostrated Bastilles, which has got pike andmusket, and now goes burning Chateaus, passing resolutions and haranguingunder roof and sky, may be said to have sprung; and, by law of Nature, mustgrow. To judge by the madness and diseasedness both of itself, and of thesoil and element it is in, one might expect the rapidity and monstrositywould be extreme.

Many things too, especially all diseased things, grow by shoots and fits. The first grand fit and shooting forth of Sansculottism with that of Parisconquering its King; for Bailly's figure of rhetoric was all-too sad areality. The King is conquered; going at large on his parole; oncondition, say, of absolutely good behaviour,--which, in thesecircumstances, will unhappily mean no behaviour whatever. A quiteuntenable position, that of Majesty put on its good behaviour! Alas, is itnot natural that whatever lives try to keep itself living? Whereupon hisMajesty's behaviour will soon become exceptionable; and so the Second grandFit of Sansculottism, that of putting him in durance, cannot be distant.

Necker, in the National Assembly, is making moan, as usual about hisDeficit: Barriers and Customhouses burnt; the Tax-gatherer hunted, nothunting; his Majesty's Exchequer all but empty. The remedy is a Loan ofthirty millions; then, on still more enticing terms, a Loan of eightymillions: neither of which Loans, unhappily, will the Stockjobbers ventureto lend. The Stockjobber has no country, except his own black pool ofAgio.

And yet, in those days, for men that have a country, what a glow ofpatriotism burns in many a heart; penetrating inwards to the very purse! So early as the 7th of August, a Don Patriotique, 'a Patriotic Gift ofjewels to a considerable extent,' has been solemnly made by certainParisian women; and solemnly accepted, with honourable mention. Whomforthwith all the world takes to imitating and emulating. Patriotic Gifts,always with some heroic eloquence, which the President must answer and theAssembly listen to, flow in from far and near: in such number that thehonourable mention can only be performed in 'lists published at statedepochs.' Each gives what he can: the very cordwainers have behavedmunificently; one landed proprietor gives a forest; fashionable societygives its shoebuckles, takes cheerfully to shoe-ties. Unfortunate femalesgive what they 'have amassed in loving.' (Histoire Parlementaire, ii.427.) The smell of all cash, as Vespasian thought, is good.

Beautiful, and yet inadequate! The Clergy must be 'invited' to melt theirsuperfluous Church-plate,--in the Royal Mint. Nay finally, a PatrioticContribution, of the forcible sort, must be determined on, thoughunwillingly: let the fourth part of your declared yearly revenue, for thisonce only, be paid down; so shall a National Assembly make theConstitution, undistracted at least by insolvency. Their own wages, assettled on the 17th of August, are but Eighteen Francs a day, each man; butthe Public Service must have sinews, must have money. To appease theDeficit; not to 'combler, or choke the Deficit,' if you or mortal could! For withal, as Mirabeau was heard saying, "it is the Deficit that savesus."

Towards the end of August, our National Assembly in its constitutionallabours, has got so far as the question of Veto: shall Majesty have a Vetoon the National Enactments; or not have a Veto? What speeches were spoken,within doors and without; clear, and also passionate logic; imprecations,comminations; gone happily, for most part, to Limbo! Through the crackedbrain, and uncracked lungs of Saint-Huruge, the Palais Royal rebellows withVeto. Journalism is busy, France rings with Veto. 'I shall never forget,'says Dumont, 'my going to Paris, one of these days, with Mirabeau; and thecrowd of people we found waiting for his carriage, about Le Jay theBookseller's shop. They flung themselves before him; conjuring him withtears in their eyes not to suffer the Veto Absolu. They were in a frenzy: "Monsieur le Comte, you are the people's father; you must save us; you mustdefend us against those villains who are bringing back Despotism. If theKing get this Veto, what is the use of National Assembly? We are slaves,all is done."' (Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 156.) Friends, if the skyfall, there will be catching of larks! Mirabeau, adds Dumont, was eminenton such occasions: he answered vaguely, with a Patrician imperturbability,and bound himself to nothing.

Deputations go to the Hotel-de-Ville; anonymous Letters to Aristocrats inthe National Assembly, threatening that fifteen thousand, or sometimes thatsixty thousand, 'will march to illuminate you.' The Paris Districts areastir; Petitions signing: Saint-Huruge sets forth from the Palais Royal,with an escort of fifteen hundred individuals, to petition in person. Resolute, or seemingly so, is the tall shaggy Marquis, is the Cafe de Foy: but resolute also is Commandant-General Lafayette. The streets are allbeset by Patrols: Saint-Huruge is stopped at the Barriere des Bon Hommes;he may bellow like the bulls of Bashan; but absolutely must return. Thebrethren of the Palais Royal 'circulate all night,' and make motions, underthe open canopy; all Coffee-houses being shut. Nevertheless Lafayette andthe Townhall do prevail: Saint-Huruge is thrown into prison; Veto Absoluadjusts itself into Suspensive Veto, prohibition not forever, but for aterm of time; and this doom's-clamour will grow silent, as the others havedone.

So far has Consolidation prospered, though with difficulty; repressing theNether Sansculottic world; and the Constitution shall be made. Withdifficulty: amid jubilee and scarcity; Patriotic Gifts, Bakers'-queues;Abbe-Fauchet Harangues, with their Amen of platoon-musketry! ScipioAmericanus has deserved thanks from the National Assembly and France. They